My year-end balance doesn’t agree with my bank - how do I narrow down where the difference is?

Question

My Clubtreasurer balance at year end is out by a few hundred pounds compared with my bank statement, and I had a difference the year before that I never tracked down. How can I narrow the difference down to a particular month?

Answer

The most reliable way to find a difference is to perform regular bank reconciliations. This means comparing your bank statement’s opening and closing balances, and its individual transactions, against what is recorded in Clubtreasurer. Done regularly (monthly is ideal), any error can be pinned to a specific month rather than hiding in a full year of transactions. This matters most if you enter receipts and payments manually, as errors such as typos, duplicates, missed items or items in the wrong period are easier to make.

How to track down an existing difference

Unfortunately, the only way to properly find missing or incorrect transactions is to reconcile retrospectively:

1. Find the most recent month where the Clubtreasurer balance agrees with your bank statement.
2. Reconcile that month and work forward, one month at a time.
3. The first month that doesn’t reconcile is where the problem is. Check that month’s transactions line by line against the statement.

Don’t want to go back to the prior year?

If the previous year’s balances were also wrong and you’d rather not investigate that period, you can add an adjusting receipt or payment dated the last day of the prior year. This corrects this year’s opening balance so you only need to reconcile the current year. Make sure the adjustment is clearly described so it’s understood later.

Reports that can help (Reports > Account & Cash Reports)

• Account Movement Summary Report
• Account and Cashbook Report
• Reconciliation Report

Further help

• Help/Tutorial page: Bank Reconciliations
• Treasurer’s guide: How to do a bank reconciliation for a club or society