This checklist will guide you through the necessary steps to check your internal financial activity lines up with the financial activity recorded on your bank statement.
It is important to know whether all expected payments have been recorded as this helps you note any potential mistakes made by the bank.
This bank reconciliation process works on a daily basis.
You can watch the video below for a quick visual explanation of the process.
Print out the declaration from your cash register to give an overview of the day’s takings.
Use this declaration as your base point for measuring calculations against.
Adding the cash from the registers seems like a simple process, but it is important to include a series of checks along the way.
Follow the steps laid out in this subchecklist to complete your cashing-up process.
Fill in the bank deposit slips with the appropriate names, addresses, and account numbers.
Be sure to document the quantity of cash correctly on the deposit.
For some banks, this may be a simple paper form and for others, it may be a form printed on to the deposit bag itself.
Record the details of the sales takings in your cash receipts journal.
You will need to consult the cash receipts journal when running the bank reconciliation.
File all the documents safely in case they are needed later for further review or audit.
It’s important to develop a clear and comprehensive filing system to make sure you are always on top of your historical paperwork.
Take all the cash takings, plus any checks, to the bank to be deposited and collect a bank statement.
Compare the figures on the bank statement with the figures on the cash receipts journal.
Where two figures for transactions are present on both, put a tick next to each of them.
Compare the figures on the bank statement with the figures on the cash payments journal.
Where two figures for transactions are present on both, put a tick next to each of them.
Sometimes banks can make mistakes. Part of the purpose of a bank reconciliation process is to find these mistakes and account for them.
Some common mistakes can be the fault of data entry. For example, the bank may have recorded a payment of $524 when it should have been $254.
Be sure to carefully check for any errors before moving on.
Record the errors you have found in the statement.
In order to easily contact your bank manager to report the errors at the end of the checklist, fill in their contact details below.
From your unticked lists, you want to run through the bank statement to find any unticked credits.
This refers to credits that have been recorded by the bank but are not present in your cash receipts journal. Add these unticked credits into the CRJ and then tick them off.
Update your cash receipts journal to reflect these omissions.
Once you’ve added any unticked credits to the CRJ, repeat the process for unticked debits.
Add these unticked debits into the CPJ and then tick them off.
Update your cash payments journal to reflect these omissions.
After entering your unticked debits into your CPJ and your unticked credits into your CRJ, ticking each transaction off the bank statement as you go, you should be left with a fully ticked off bank statement.
Instead of just looking at the bank balance, we want to calculate the bank balance to know what it should be – rather than simply what the statement says.
Begin with the balance as recorded at the end of the previous day’s reconciliation.
Add the receipts total to this opening bank balance, and then subtract the payments total.
The final answer should record the “real” bank balance.
Record that figure below in the form field.
Start with the bank balance from the bank statement. Add all the unticked receipts and then less the unticked payments.
This should provide you with an amended version of the bank statement bank balance.
Record the final figure below.
Now compare the “real” bank balance calculated in task 17 with the adjusted bank statement balance calculated in task 18.
“Real” bank balance: {{form.”Real”_bank_balance}}
Adjusted bank statement balance: {{form.Adjusted_bank_statement_balance}}
These two numbers should be the same, and the balance reconciled.
If they are not the same, check your maths by reviewing all calculations and begin the reconciliation again from task 10 if necessary.
If you recorded any bank errors in task 12, you should contact the bank to notify them.
Either contact by phone, or if you have the email address of your bank manager use the email widget below.
