Quality Bookkeeping Cleanup and the bank row that stays open

Last spring's invoice said paid, and one deposit on that statement still has no line in the books. We are not going to invent an amount for it. The first check stays open because the statement and the books are telling two stories about the same day.

A match is not a feeling that the totals are close. It is each line on the statement sitting on a line in the books, on the date you named. If one deposit is loose, we do not average it into the rest and call the month done.

A deposit that has sat unmatched since the last invoice is not a mystery we leave in a holding account. We ask whether it is on the statement for that named date, and we write the answer before anyone calls the month finished.

People sometimes drop the loose deposit into a holding account so the bank screen looks calm. The calm is borrowed. On the statement date the holding account is part of the check, and a balance there means the row did not pass.

Bring the statement and the date you think the cleanup used. We start there, not in the middle of the chart of accounts. If the date was never named, naming it is the first thing the call is for.

Uncleared checks get an age. A check from last week can wait. A check from last spring needs a decision: void it, reissue it, or find out why it never cleared. We write the decision down.

Money that only moved from your other account is not a sale. Trace that deposit before it is allowed to sit in income. We believe the bank feed before we believe a guessed category.

When the row passes, we say so in a sentence you can repeat. When it fails, we say which deposit, and the rest of the invoice waits. You can read the other four checks on the home, and you can see what a failed list looks like on the next page.

This page will not quote a rate, a sample balance, or a promise that your file will match on the first afternoon. The unmatched deposit drawn here is a composite. It is not a client balance.

If the row fails, the useful next step is a time on the calendar or a note that names the statement date. The failed list shows why the later rows wait. The questions cover what you pay.