What Is Bank Statement Reconciliation & How Do I Use It?

The Bank Statement Reconciliation feature in ISP allows you to accurately keep track of your finances outside of ISP. Here you can ensure all transactions are financially accounted for and match your actual bank statement.

When you first navigate to the Reconcile Bank Statement page via the Accounting tab, you will see several options.

Account: This is where you select the financial account to reconcile. Reconciliation is done on a financial account-by-financial account basis and is independent of the filers. Only transactions that are part of that specific financial account you select will show here.

Closing Date: Select the ending date of the bank statement you are reconciling. Along with the financial account selected, only transactions equal to and older than this date will appear.

Starting Balance: This is where you enter the starting balance of the bank statement for that month. If there was prior activity in the account that is not in ISP, that is factored into the number entered here.

Ending Balance Continue Later: This is where you enter the ending balance as indicated on the bank statement you are reconciling.

Once the initial settings have been created, click the Generate button. That will calculate the difference between the starting and ending balance and pull any transactions that are older than the Closing date entered.

The overall goal with reconciliation is to get the difference between the starting and ending balances in ISP to be $0. That indicates all transactions affecting the actual bank statement have been identified. When working on a bank reconciliation in ISP, the system will not allow a reconciliation to be applied until the Difference shows $0. Until that happens, you can click Continue Later at the bottom of the screen to save the work you have done up until that point.

If you open the Reconciliation screen and there is a previous reconciliation that was never finished, you can click Edit Statement Details to switch to a different financial account to reconcile.

While it’s not best practices, in certain situations you can include an old transaction in the current reconciliation. The reconciliation system only requires that the ending balance be $0. It will warn you if the starting balance doesn’t match but it won’t prevent you from finishing your reconciliation.

As you go through the reconciliation, the transactions selected from the list of Outstanding Transactions will add or subtract from the difference between the starting and ending balances, as indicated in the Difference column. If you need to edit any of the initial settings, such as changing the starting balance or even the financial account, click the Edit Statement Details button in the Statement Summary section.

If you receive a message stating your starting balance doesn’t match what was previously marked as cleared, your next best step is to review transactions that may have been edited since your last reconciliation. To view these transactions, click the Changed Reconciled Transactions report link in the message.

If you have the Dropbox integration installed in your database, you’ll see the Dropbox icon in various spots when reconciling a bank statement. You can use this folder to add attachments to the specific reconciliation you are working in, whether it’s a current reconciliation or you’re reviewing a previously completed reconciliation. Each reconciliation statement will have its own room for attachments specific to only that reconciliation statement.

At the bottom of the screen are more options.

Undo Most Recent: This allows you to undo the most recent reconciliation. If you have multiple Financial Accounts in the database, this will be a dropup menu and will show each account. Choose the account with the most recent reconciliation you’d like to undo.

View Past Reconciliations: This dropup menu shows past reconciliations and gives you the ability to view and print them.