Software to reconcile bank statements?

[fix]

Hi I've been in business for a few years and always been pretty poor when it comes to the accounts side of things, I basically have too much on my plate and although business is good I just get by with the accounts side of things.

Anyhow I've recently given my annual accounts to my accountant and this year there's a big difference in the balance on Quickbooks to the balance on my actual bank statements, and he's basically said the only real way to sort out the differences is go through the year transaction by transaction, this will take a considerable amount of time so I'm wondering if there's some software that can help me out.

Ideally I would export my bank statements into an xls or csv file, import into the software, then export from Quickbooks and import into the software and then see what's missing from Quickbooks compared to my actual bank account.

Can anyone advise on some software to help? I don't want to spend a fortune but on the other hand really need to get this sorted!

Thanks

 

[Philip Hoyle]

You could export the bank transactions as per QB into a spreadsheet. The export your bank statements from online banking into a spreadsheet, so you end up with two spreadsheets to compare. You can then "sort" each spreadsheet, firstly into payments and recs and total them, so you can see whether the different is in the payments or receipts. Then sort either by date or amount and copy both lists into a new spreadsheet side by side which should help you spot what's there and what isn't and any other differences. Then correct the QB entries and you should then be able to reconcile QB.

Alternatively, you could use the QB bank reconciliation feature which would probably do the job better, and maybe not much time difference. To start, check the opening balance between the QB Bank rec and the bank statements, and assuming it's right, just work through, week by week or month by month, checking the reconciliation balances as you go along and correcting any errors along the way. It may take a little longer than the first option, but you have to correct the QB data however you do it.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

I love the bank import feature on Accounts Portal it works extremely well, certainly no problems with reconciling a bank account if you use that. Maybe worth looking at.

 

[fix]

Hi thanks for the replies.

Philip that is a good idea which I may end up trying, but I was hoping to find some software that can compare the quickbooks transactions and the actual bank transactions then notify of the differences, I'm sure there is software around that can do that, as it's basically doing what you've suggested but in I guess a few clicks.

I'm afraid I don't use the accounts portal software, as it's as such accountancy software which I assume is on going I don't think it's any good to me, I just want to get some kind of standalone software to do the job.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Hi thanks for the replies.

Philip that is a good idea which I may end up trying, but I was hoping to find some software that can compare the quickbooks transactions and the actual bank transactions then notify of the differences, I'm sure there is software around that can do that, as it's basically doing what you've suggested but in I guess a few clicks.

I'm afraid I don't use the accounts portal software, as it's as such accountancy software which I assume is on going I don't think it's any good to me, I just want to get some kind of standalone software to do the job.

Philips suggestion of reconciling a bank account is pretty tired and tested An accountant familiar with reconciling bank accounts will be able to do it much quicker than someone not used to it.

I didnt perhaps explain very well I was suggesting Accounts Portal as an alternative to QuickBooks for you to use in future. I've had a few clients change and they have found it much easier especially entering bank transactions using the bank import feature.

 

[fix]

It's definitely a good option, but still a last resort for me when I still think there will be some software that can do it much quicker, after all it's just comparing two spreadsheets as such, and yes it can be done semi manually, but time really isn't on my side at the moment!

With Accounts portal I actually quite like Quickbooks, it works well for me in general and it's used for my stock control system, so it's not something I want to change.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi

You might want to have a look at this software http://www.enodatio.com/ they specialise in providing Bank reconciliation s/w for both large and small Businesses, they are also base locally in Horbury..

Hope this helps and if it does please mention my name (Mark Abbott) when you contact them (Jon Gilbert - Director)..

Good Luck

 

[fix]

Thanks for that Jon that's the sort of software I'm looking for, I'm not sure if that particular company will be able to help me as it seems the services they provide are on going rather than a one off, but I've emailed them and will see what they say.

If anyone else has ideas on similar software more as a one off purchase please let me know.

Thanks

 

[kevin.doran]

I think the lesson to be learned here (without sounding like I'm saying I don't you so or whatever) is to make sure everything reconciles on a regular basis, monthly ideally. I know you say you struggle for time but surely it's worth an hour each month? If not, employ a bookkeeper or ask your accountant for a suggestion perhaps?

 

[Karen Bennett]

Hi there,

I realise this thread is little old so this might only be relevant for future jobs that are like this.

AutoRec is an option that you might bear in mind.

AutoRec is a bank reconciliation software that eliminates the manual data entry from bank, credit card or online statements. AutoRec can extract the transactional information for you from the statements and convert it into a spreadsheet. You can verify your running balance to 100% within the software.

You can then export your file into xls, excel or csv. AutoRec also does have exports to for numerous accounting software packages such as Xero, Quickbooks, VT, CCH, Digita, Sage, IRIS to name a few.

AutoRec does a few other accounting things too. You can identify presented or missing cheques from the bank statements so again you don’t have to manually go through each and every cheque stub if that was relevant. You can also do a complete payment and receipt analysis and export this file to your accounts software package.

There are almost 1,000 accounting practices subscribing to AutoRec in just two years since it has been launched on the market.

AutoRec prices start at £99 for a yearly subscription with full training and support included in that price.

If you have any questions you can contact me directly

 

[kevin.doran]

^^^ And i'll happily vouch for it being a superb bit of kit!!

 

[Karen Bennett]

Thanks Kevin. It's great to get positive feedback from our customers.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Hi there,

I realise this thread is little old so this might only be relevant for future jobs that are like this.

AutoRec is an option that you might bear in mind.

AutoRec is a bank reconciliation software that eliminates the manual data entry from bank, credit card or online statements. AutoRec can extract the transactional information for you from the statements and convert it into a spreadsheet. You can verify your running balance to 100% within the software.

You can then export your file into xls, excel or csv. AutoRec also does have exports to for numerous accounting software packages such as Xero, Quickbooks, VT, CCH, Digita, Sage, IRIS to name a few.

AutoRec does a few other accounting things too. You can identify presented or missing cheques from the bank statements so again you don’t have to manually go through each and every cheque stub if that was relevant. You can also do a complete payment and receipt analysis and export this file to your accounts software package.

There are almost 1,000 accounting practices subscribing to AutoRec in just two years since it has been launched on the market.

AutoRec prices start at £99 for a yearly subscription with full training and support included in that price.

If you have any questions you can contact me directly

Hi Karen

I can really see several years ago this would have been great, but how does it benefit anyone now who only uses online banking (no cheques) and can simply import data from online banking to an accounts package?

 

[David Griffiths]

Autorec works well where you can't get electronic transactions from customers, so have to scan the bank statements and process from there. Examples will be those people who don't / won't have online banking, for whatever reason. Or people who will have online banking in future but there are past transactions to clear. That's not normally an issue as once they get online they can download transactions from several years ago - with the notable exception of Barclays where we've actually had a situation where we couldn't download transactions from two weeks earlier. Seriously.

I'm not sure how it would help the OP in this case, however because the issue isn't just the bank rec, it's tying things in with the existing Quickbooks records. Even if the bank rec is done externally, how are you going to know which adjustments are required to the QB system?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thanks David I understand now.

Due to the nature of my practice I don't think we have any clients who don't use online banking and can easily import bank statements but appreciate what the package does.

Sounds like it has a very limited shelf life.

 

[Karen Bennett]

Hi Karen


I can really see several years ago this would have been great, but how does it benefit anyone now who only uses online banking (no cheques) and can simply import data from online banking to an accounts package?

Hi There,


Well the answer is AutoRec won't benefit you if you or your clients if are using online banking and actively export your online statements. I think with some banks you can only export online statements for the previous 6 months?


As David (above) mentions it is specifically for those clients that don't have online banking. It is very much a niche product developed for accountants who were working of the hard copy of statements to complete a set of accounts for their incomplete records jobs. A lot of our customers do also process online statements through AutoRec too. They find it easier to utilise the payment and receipt analysis feature within AutoRec. Our customers predominately use AutoRec to process VAT returns for their clients.

While the idea of a cheque is fading out there are a number of small businesses who still use cheques for everything. Accountants who do have these clients use the cheque rec feature in AutoRec, which can identify any missing cheques that were not presented on the bank statement.

So not for everyone but it is a solution for those 'incomplete record jobs' !

@David thanks for your comment. Part of the question asked about ‘export my bank statements into an xls or csv file, import into the software’ which AutoRec does. However, AutoRec isn’t go to do everything that ‘Infinity Office Supplies Ltd’ is looking for but it will save time compared to manually typing it out.

I’m not 100% familiar with the exports from Quickbooks as we use another accounts software internally ourselves.

Hope my suggestion helps with part of problem.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain so fully Karen, much appreciated.

I cant see that I'd ever have a need for it but certainly worth keeping in mind.

 

[David Griffiths]

As Elaine would have gleefully pointed out if she was still around, I'm at the senior end of the working age bracket and have many clients of similar age, and some younger ones who are technophobic. After umming and aahing for a couple of years we signed up with Autorec in February. Since then we've gone through more than 90% of our expected annual use in just over four months!

And an example of wow inducing customer service - we had a failure on recognising some online statements from Barclays - the case that I referred to above where we couldn't go back two weeks. I was just starting an email to support to ask what the problem was, when the phone rang and it was Autorec support to say that they'd noticed we'd had a failure and could they help. Wow!

 

[kevin.doran]

I know, amazing eh @David Griffiths. I wasn't sure if it was a fluke at first so did it again deliberately a day or two later just to see what happened and low and behold I got another call!

It really is a fantastic product though, really helps out with any unexpected situations, especially in the run up to deadlines.

 

[Ola1]

A tiny concern I have about systems that directly import from banks is that the clients accounts are tethered to the banks systems. Potentially, Any mistakes(eg 3rd party changes dd amount) in the bank out put would be replicated to the client

Sounds improbable, but

 

[kevin.doran]

I think you're misunderstanding the software.

 

[Ola1]

In what way ?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

As Elaine would have gleefully pointed out if she was still around, I'm at the senior end of the working age bracket and have many clients of similar age, and some younger ones who are technophobic. After umming and aahing for a couple of years we signed up with Autorec in February. Since then we've gone through more than 90% of our expected annual use in just over four months!

And an example of wow inducing customer service - we had a failure on recognising some online statements from Barclays - the case that I referred to above where we couldn't go back two weeks. I was just starting an email to support to ask what the problem was, when the phone rang and it was Autorec support to say that they'd noticed we'd had a failure and could they help. Wow!

oh I miss Elaine.

I'm sadly no sprint chicken either.

Seriously Autorec does sound very good I'll certainly keep it in mind.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

QuickBooks is the best software that makes it easy to reconcile bank statements every month. To reconcile bank statements, you carefully match transactions on the bank statement to the transactions in your accounting records. To reconcile bank statements, go to Banking > More > Reconcile.
If you want to move from QB then Xero and CashBook are the good options.

Not too sure about QuickBooks being the best.

I think you'll find most decent software now enables you to import bank data and reconcile bank accounts quickly and easily.

 

[kevin.doran]

In what way ?

Re

A tiny concern I have about systems that directly import from banks...

That's not what AutoRec does. It takes paper statements, scans them to PDF then converts them to excel so they can be easily imported into whatever system. It goes a bit further than that feature wise in all honesty but that's all i've ever used it for. It's not a direct import system though.

 

[Karen Bennett]

Thanks David and Kevin for the great comments about AutoRec customer support. We do pirde ourselves on our customer service. We work really hard to ensure our customers get the most out of AutoRec.

It's great to hear that the hard work is paying off and our customers are receiving good customer service.

Thanks again!!

 

[Karen Bennett]

A tiny concern I have about systems that directly import from banks is that the clients accounts are tethered to the banks systems. Potentially, Any mistakes(eg 3rd party changes dd amount) in the bank out put would be replicated to the client

Sounds improbable, but

As Kevin describes AutoRec is not a system that directly imports from banks.

With AutoRec you can scan your bank statements on your standard office scanner and save as a PDF, tiif or jpeg file. You can then upload these statements into AutoRec and it will convert the statements into a spreadsheet for you. You can then just export to excel or csv. As Kevin also says there are a lot of other features that are useful.

It is typically used by accountants for those incomplete record jobs. It basically eliminates the manual data entry that is involved with these kind of jobs. It’s kind of crazy that qualified accountants and bookkeepers are spending hours doing data entry!!

We also do online demonstrations if you wanted to have a look exactly how it works?? During the online webinar we can take you through an example of a job from a sole trader's set of accounts. It takes approximately 15 minutes. We can then show you how the reconciled and analysed data can be imported into your accounts software.

At the moment I can’t put links up on this forum as I’m a new member but if you google ‘autorec’ you can see our website. There are loads of testimonials and case studies from some more customers so you can get some more feedback on AutoRec. You can register for a demo on the website too.

 

[Ola1]

My concern is not with Autorec(I am glad to have heard about that )

My concern is with the new generation of web based software that do import directly from the bank. If folk get in to the habit of just accepting imported transactions ,,,