Reconciling is the monthly habit that makes your books trustworthy: you prove that what kBooks says about an account matches what the bank says, down to the cent.
Starting a reconcile
Open the account and start a reconcile. You give it two numbers straight off the bank statement: the ending date and the ending balance. If you have uploaded that statement into kBooks, those numbers fill in by themselves.
The opening side is never typed: it is the ending balance of your last finished reconcile, which is exactly how the chain stays honest from month to month.
Ticking through
The screen lists every transaction in the period. Tick each one that appears on the bank statement. The running difference at the top counts down as you go; when it reaches zero, everything the bank saw is accounted for and the reconcile can finish.
Most months this is fast, because the feed already kept your books and the bank speaking the same language. What you are really looking for is the exceptions:
- A transaction in kBooks the bank never saw (a duplicate, or a check that never cleared).
- Bank activity missing from kBooks (a fee you have not entered).
Finishing
Finish locks the period's tick marks and records the reconcile, and the next month opens from this month's ending balance. You can always reopen the report of a past reconcile to see exactly what was ticked and by whom.
If the difference will not close and you have checked everything, the usual suspect is the opening balance: a change made to an already reconciled month shows up here. The reconcile points you at exactly what changed, so you can decide whether to accept it or put it back.