- The Bank Reconciliation is designed to keep a track of what has been presented at the bank, compared with what the business thinks is at the bank. A fantastic feature of the bank reconciliation process is that it will show discrepancies if they occur between your statements and what you’ve entered in SILQ, helping to ensure accuracy.
- The Bank Reconciliation should be done on a regular basis. The first time you do this, you may have to enter more information into SILQ. By completing the Bank Reconciliation on a regular basis, it will reveal the transactional discrepancies and allow you to make appropriate corrections.
Reconciling Accounts
To reconcile a bank account, click on Accounts in the Top Toolbar and then select Reconcile Practice.
The Select Account window will open up. Click once to highlight the account you want to reconcile and then click on the Select button.
The Account Reconciliation window will open up for the account that you selected. In the example below the General Cheque Account has been selected.
Top Toolbar Buttons
- New Spend Money: This will allow you to create a new Spend Money item. Enter the details of the spend money and save it.
- New General Receipt: This will allow you to create a new Receive Money item. Enter the details of the spend money and save it. Note: If it is a matter receipt you must enter it via the normal methods.
- Reconcile Account: Once you are satisfied that all the transactions are entered for the account and Out of Balance is zero. Click on this button and it will finalise the reconciliation.
- Undo Last Reconciliation: This will undo your last reconciliation. Click this if you need to make any changes to your previous reconciliation.
Please Note: Once you have closed the month, this cannot be undone and cannot be edited in any way.
Reconciling Accounts
Reconciling your bank accounts is a simple five-step process, which is outlined below
Step 1
Enter the Last Reconciled balance. The system will remember the balance of the last reconciliation. If, however, this is the first time you have reconciled the account you may have to enter the value.
Step 2
Enter the Statement closing balance. You will find this on your bank statement. The Out Of Balance field will reveal how much is in error. You cannot complete the reconciliation if it is out of balance.
Step 3
Compare the bank statement with the items for the account. Tick any items that are on your statement. Leave any items that are not on your statement un-ticked.
Step 4
Identify any items that have originated at the bank, such as Interest and Bank Fees (and therefore appear on the bank statement but will not yet be recorded by you in SILQ). Use the New General Receipt and New Spend Money buttons in the Top Toolbar to enter these transactions.
Step 5
The totals should now match and the Out Of Balance should be $0.00. Once this is the case you can finalise the reconciliation.
To finalise the reconciliation, click on the Reconcile Account button in the Top Toolbar.
Reconcile Account Fields
- Last Reconciled Date: The bank statement date when last reconciliation occurred
- Last Reconciled Balance: The balance the last time the account was reconciled
- Bank Statement Date: This is the date on the bank statement that you are currently trying to reconcile. SILQ will not show any transactions past this date
- Statement Closing Balance: This is the final balance on the bank statement that you are currently trying to reconcile
- Calculated Closing Balance: This is the sum of the last reconciled balance and all the tagged items. This needs to match the Statement Closing Balance so it can be reconciled
- Out of Balance: If the Statement Closing Balance and the Calculated Closing Balance are different, this is the amount they differ by. This needs to be zero before you can reconcile the account