You may encounter an incorrect or zero beginning balance while selecting an account to reconcile by opening the begin reconciliation window. In this article, you will find the reasons causing the issue and QuickBooks support team will provide you the solutions to resolve the issue. For direct assistance, reach our team directly.
Reasons for incorrect or zero balance:
• There could be a data damage issue.
• When the account was set up, no balance or incorrect balance was entered by mistake.
• The transactions which were reconciled or cleared earlier were voided, deleted or modified.
• A different version of QuickBooks was used when the file was converted.
How to correct zero balance?
Recreating opening balance
You can try recreating opening balance to correct zero balance. If you have never reconciled the account earlier, recreating the opening balance is a good option. Begin reconciliation window does not provide; the option to recreate the opening balance. In order to correct it, you can do mini-reconciliation by creating a journal entry.
1.Creating a journal entry. Ensure that you use the correct date and amount which should be reflected in the begin reconciliation window.
a) From the Company menu, select Make General Journal Entries.
b) Put the correct date of the statement of your beginning balance.
c) From the Account drop-down, choose the appropriate account.
d) In the debit column, enter the correct opening balance.
e) Select the appropriate Opening Balance Equity.
f) Click on Save to save the changes made.
2. After creating a journal entry, the next step is to do a mini-reconciliation to correct the Beginning Balance in the Begin Reconciliation window.
a. Select Reconcile from the banking menu that appears.
b. From the Account drop-down, select the appropriate account.
c. Put the appropriate statement date and ending balance matching Journal Entry.
d. Click on Continue.
e. The user needs to select the corresponding Journal Entry In the Deposits and Other Credits section.
Note: check that the Difference amount shown should now be zero.
f. Click on Reconcile Now.
How to fix an incorrect balance?
You can correct edited, deleted, or cleared transactions using the solutions given below.
You are required to run any of the given reports in order To find the discrepancy causing a transaction.
Reconcile Discrepancy report
a. From the reports menu, click on Banking > Reconciliation Discrepancy.
b. Once you choose the Account, click on OK. A list of transactions will appear that were changed since the last reconciliation. Identify the transaction/s causing the issue, using the report and the data on the report.
c. Note the transaction date and the Entered/Last Modified of the transaction causing the discrepancy. The modified date on the transaction will tell you when the change occurred.
Audit Trail reports
a. From the report menu, click on Banking > Previous Reconciliation.
b. Choose the appropriate account that has to be reconciled.
c. Select statement date and Choose Transactions cleared at the time of reconciliation and then click on Display.
d. Note the date of statement and reconciliation.
e. From the reports menu, select Accountant & Taxes > Audit Trail.
f. Account filter needs to be set for the account is reconciled.
i. Click on Customize Report.
ii. Choose Account from the filters tab,
iii. Select the appropriate account From the Account drop-down,
g. Set the date filter from the display tab.
h. Click on OK.
i. Set the Entered/Modified filter from previous reconciliation to today’s date.
j. Check if there is any transaction causing the discrepancy.
Previous Reconciliation report
Note: being a QuickBooks Desktop Pro user, you can only access the last reconciliation report. Save a PDF on your hard drive to keep a copy of other reports.
To learn how to view the previous reconciliation report, contact QuickBooks Technical Support team.
a. From the reports menu, select Banking > Previous Reconciliation.
b. Choose the appropriate Account and Statement Ending Date and click on Display.
c. Compare the current report to the past statements of the financial institution.
Once the discrepancy causing transaction is found you are required to correct it. For that, you may need to re-enter or edit the transactions. Choose one of the following options to resolve the issue.
Undo and redo a previous reconciliation.
a.Take a backup of the QuickBooks company file.
b. select Undo Last Reconciliation from the Begin Reconciliation window,
c. Select continue and click on ok.
d. Close and open the Begin Reconciliation window again.
QuickBooks will itself enter an offsetting adjustment. A journal entry is made automatically by QuickBooks under a special account called Reconciliation Discrepancies.
The chart of accounts will allow you to check and edit it if you require.
You can also locate the journal entry, by:
• Using the Find feature:
a. From the edit menu, click on find.
b. From the Advanced tab filter choose Memo.
c. Enter Balance Adjustment and click on Find. The screen will display if there is any balance adjustment.
• Viewing the Previous Reconciliation report.
a. From the reports, menu select Banking > Previous Reconciliation.
b. General Journal Entry will be shown at the top of the report if any balance adjustment was made, under the Cleared Transactions section.
If you encounter any banking error, contact our QuickBooks support team.
There could be a discrepancy caused by a banking error that appears while downloading or importing transactions.
You must know the limitations while converting from other versions of QuickBooks
Since the reconciliation process works differently in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac and QuickBooks Online, it may affect your opening balance. Because sometimes some transactions may get unreconciled.
Fixing possible data damage
If you find any issue with your data file or you get an error code while performing any of the solutions, contact our QuickBooks Support team.