Bank reconciliation is the process of matching every transaction in your accounting books against your actual bank statement, so the two numbers agree at month-end. Skipping it for even one month makes errors compound and much harder to trace later.
The monthly checklist
- ✓Match every deposit: Confirm each bank credit matches an invoice payment or other recorded income entry.
- ✓Match every withdrawal: Confirm each bank debit matches a recorded bill payment or expense.
- ✓Flag unmatched bank items: Bank charges, interest credited, or auto-debits that haven't been recorded in the books yet.
- ✓Flag unmatched book items: Cheques issued but not yet cleared, or invoices marked paid that haven't hit the bank yet.
- ✓Confirm the closing balance: Your book balance and bank statement balance should match exactly after accounting for the two lists above.
A reconciliation that doesn't balance almost always traces back to one of two causes: a transaction recorded twice, or a transaction never recorded at all — both are easiest to find within the same month, not three months later.
Automating it
Manually matching hundreds of transactions line-by-line is where most reconciliation delays come from. A system that auto-matches bank feed transactions against invoices and bills turns a multi-day task into a same-day review of just the exceptions.
Want this automated instead of manual?
SleetHR runs GST billing, reconciliation, and sales pipeline in one platform.