Should I reconcile bank transactions per month or for the year in one go

David Morris
David Morris Member Posts: 14
edited January 2019 in Reckon One
I am a new Reckon One user, and have three weeks to get my books completed for the whole of 2018 so that I can get my annual return and GST return off to IRD in time. Nothing like leaving it to the last minute is there.

I signed up for the core modules + invoicing, and have created an invoice for every sale made, and this evening will complete creating a bill for every purchase made. Then I presume that I need to reconcile all of this to the bank. 

I have two questions: 
  1. Should I break the CSV file from the bank into monthly chunks rather than trying to process the whole year in one go (whole year is around 100 transactions, with the busiest month having about 20 transactions)? I had issues with the import screen locking, and when I tried to refresh everything disappeared, even though it says I have had a manual upload that has completed ok. I saw on the community that there were problems with this in the past. Would that problem go away if I do a month at a time. 

  2. Some of my sales were paid for through Stripe (credit card processor). Is it best to add that as a separate dummy bank account? If I do that, it looks like I could then account for the card fees separately, and then reconcile the balance paid into my actual bank account. Does that make sense? 

Comments

  • Vicki Williams-Haynes
    Vicki Williams-Haynes Member Posts: 10
    edited January 2019
    Ive been in the bookkeeping industry for along time and I would suggest that you break it down to monthly reconciliations.  If you have any problems with the reconciliation it will be less transactions to search through to find any errors.  Doing it monthly will most likely save you time in the long run.  Even the best of bookkeepers still celebrate if they reconcile on the first attempt.  Good Luck.
  • Judy Thomas
    Judy Thomas Member Posts: 13
    edited January 2019
    Hi David...I agree with Vicki.  

    Reconcile monthly...it's the only way to go,  and you get to review your transactions and file more thoroughly.  

    If you want to save time, don't use the purchases module, (unless you're reporting on an accrual basis) use the "make a payment"  function.  It's faster and you even use the coding function, which is faster still once you get use to it.

    Good luck!
  • David Morris
    David Morris Member Posts: 14
    edited January 2019
    Thank you @Vicki and @Judy. I did my main bank account by calendar month, which was good because I had to undo the reconciliation a couple of times as I'd missed stating the GST code on three items. All done now. I reconciled the Stripe (credit card processor) account for the whole year as there were fewer than 50 entries, so it was pretty easy.