Accounting Instruction Help & How To

This course will compare the process of reconciling bank accounts using QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, and Excel. Because Excel is a much more transparent tool, it will provide us a much better understanding of the workings of QuickBooks.

The QuickBooks related sections of the course will cover the following:

We will enter bank reconciliations for two months of data input, breaking each step of the process down into digestible components.

The first month's bank reconciliation will emphasize problems unique to the first bank reconciliation, including reconciling the beginning balance.

The second month's bank reconciliation will demonstrate the process for months after the initial reconciliation, it generally being an easier one.

The second month's bank reconciliation will also demonstrate how outstanding checks and deposits from a prior month impacts the following month's reconciliation process.

The Excel related sections of the course will cover the following:

This course will focus on creating bank reconciliations after two months of financial data was entered into an accounting system using Excel.

For most new steps in the process, you will have access to a downloadable Excel Workbook containing at least two tabs, one with the answer, the new steps completed, the other starting where the prior presentation left off.

We will create a bank reconciliation for the first and second months.

The bank reconciliation process is one of the most important internal controls over the accounting system and also one of the most misunderstood and poorly taught procedures.

Most people think a bank reconciliation’s purpose is to double-check the ending balance of cash, and it is, in part. However, we are also verifying all the transactions that have involved cash, both increases, and decreases.

Because cash is the lifeblood of the business and because every transaction will impact at least two accounts, due to the double entry accounting system, verifying cash transactions also provides a huge internal control over the rest of the accounting system, including the revenue cycle, the expenses cycle, and the employee cycle.

Most textbook problems will teach the bank reconciliation process without providing a bank statement, which can be confusing. We will give an example bank statement we will use to perform our bank reconciliation process.

As we construct our bank reconciliation, we will discuss how accounting software, like QuickBooks, lays out the bank reconciliation process.

We will also discuss some of the problems often faced when entering the first bank reconciliation.