Bank reconciliation won’t balance: causes and fixes

A reconciliation that won’t balance is maddening precisely because the answer is always there — a specific transaction, off by a specific amount. The trick is to stop staring at the whole list and work through the causes in order. Here’s the systematic approach that finds the gap fast.

Start with the opening balance

Before hunting individual transactions, confirm the reconciliation’s opening balance matches last period’s closing balance. If it doesn’t, the problem isn’t this month at all — a prior reconciliation was changed, or a transaction from a closed period was edited or deleted. This is the single most common cause of a rec that suddenly won’t tie, and checking it first saves hours.

Then work the usual causes, in order

Outstanding items

Checks written or deposits recorded but not yet cleared are legitimately outstanding — they explain a difference without being an error. Confirm the ones you’re carrying are real and recent; a check outstanding for six months probably never cleared and needs investigating.

Duplicates

The same transaction entered twice — often once manually and once from a bank feed — throws the rec by that transaction’s amount. Bank-feed matching is a frequent culprit.

Wrong amount

A transaction entered for the wrong figure leaves a difference equal to the error. If the discrepancy matches a single transaction’s likely mistake, you’ve found it.

Wrong account

A transaction posted to the wrong bank account is missing from this one and doubled in another. Check sibling accounts.

Dates

A transaction dated into the wrong period sits outside the reconciliation window. Widen the date view and look for strays.

The transposition trick

If your difference is evenly divisible by nine, you almost certainly have a transposition error — two digits swapped (say 54 entered as 45). It’s an old bookkeeper’s test and it works remarkably often. Divide the gap by nine; if it comes out whole, hunt for two transactions whose digits could be flipped.

Reconciliations after a conversion

A rec that won’t balance in the first month after a migration usually points at the opening position, not the month’s activity — an opening balance entered on the wrong date, or bank transactions imported with an off starting point. If you’ve just converted, check the opening balances before anything else.