Outstanding amount in reconciliation

SOLVED

I am new to the position of bookkeeper at a business that has been using Simply for years.  I did a reconciliation and everything looked fine.  Unresolved: 0.00 Discrepancies: 0.00.  For some strange reason, I decided to add up my outstanding amounts, and it came out different than what Simply is telling me at the bottom of the reconciliation.  It is out by 400.45.  Weird!!  I search that amount and the only time it appears is back in 2008 and it is a credit card charge, nothing to do with the bank account.  I went into reports and did a report of outstanding and the 400.45 does NOT appear and the total on the report is the same as what I came up with when I added them up in the reconciliation.  I would just disregard it, except, if I take my Bank balance and subtract the outstandings from the report that agrees with my manual calculations, I'm out by, you guessed it 400.45?????????????  HELP!!!!

Parents
  • 0

    You added the outstanding unticked amounts in transaction tab of bank rec and the total comes to 400.45 more than the outstanding at bottom of bank rec. So that tells me one of the unticked amount is for 400.45. Is

    Something doesn't seem right and maybe you made an error in adding that amount when it was already ticked off. Have you also tried ticking or unticking the box for "Do Not Show Corrections"? If the 400.45 is unticked then you may want to close down all windows and go into Maintenece then down to DAtabase Utilities and click on Repair Security. Then reboot and verify the outstanding total again.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    That amount does not show up anywhere, not a correction not an unticked or ticked entry.  I have searched the whole company file, and the only time it shows up is a credit card entry back in 2008, nothing to do with the account I am reconciling.  ????  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Have added, readded, done 4 or 5 reconciliations since I first noticed this anomaly and the amount never changes, outstanding still out 400.45.  Nothing in unresolved or discrepancies??  So weird, it is driving me crazy. Don't know how long this has been there, I just started working here a few months ago.  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    What balance does your outstanding report say.  I'm guessing the balance there will be the same as what Simply is telling you at the bottom of the reconciliation. If so then on your next bank reconciliation compare the outstanding report against the unticked amount on the bank rec itself and see if any differences there.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    I have tried changing my statement end balance to the balance Simply tells me is in that account and then ticking off every single entry in the reconciliation, and then it tells me that I have an unresolved of, wait for it....... 400.45 !!!!  And as I stated in previous comments that amount does not show up in any searches anywhere except a credit card charge in 2008.  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Sorry - I'm not sure I can be of any further help at this point without having to look at what you have.

    Your statement end balance should be the ending balance on your bank statement - not your bank general ledger account. When you use your bank stmt balance you have unresolved as zero. When you use your general ledger bank account then you are out 400.45. It could be a combination of several amounts.

    When you have reconciled your bank rec do you print off any reports? If so what reports do you print off?

    When I print off my reports I print the 'Summary' of the Account Reconciliation Report and I also print the Account Reconciliation Transaction Detail Report with only the 'Outstanding' as ticked using start date of Jan1, 1981 and ending date as the bank statement ending date. The total of the outstanding amounts will match the outstanding amounts on the Summary report.

    If you are able to reconcile the bank rec, post it, and print off the reports then I would leave it as that and maybe something will pop up in the future that will explain it.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    Update LOL.  I decided to check a reconciliation summary report from a date before I started working here, just to make sure it was not something I had done :(  and discovered the discrepancy between Adjusted Statement End Balance and Adjusted Book Balance is out by 400.45 before I started YAY!!  So I kept going back, got all the way back to Nov 2003 before those two numbers actually balance!!!  So then I tried to do a reconciliation transaction report for that date and it comes up with a error message:  The program detected an error in your data when looking for information related to record.  You may want to restore your latest backup.  Then it won't let me do anything until I close the report????  Crap!!  But at least I have narrowed it down to what month this error occurred and it wasn't me.  :)  Any ideas. on how to adjust an entry that you can't look up and that is from 11 years ago??

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Good Work! I would suggest you call Sage tech support to see if anything can be done there. Others that have experience in this may also jump in here and give you the next step to take for correcting this.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    Tried that in the beginning of all this, he just said to reset my reconciliation and gave me a link on how to do it,  It sounded really scary, like I might have to redo all the reconciliations for the last 11 years???  And not sure how that fixes anything, if I not sure what the mistake was??

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    If I understand you correctly:

    You have an amount outstanding, that you cannot see (non existent item) hence you cannot include it in reconciliation.

    Your balance agrees (reconciles) with bank statement, including the nonexistent outstanding amount.?

    Or does your balance reconcile with bank statement, and yet there is the nonexistent outstanding amount?

    You discovered that the glitch occurred in 2003.

    The question is, does the bank balance need to be corrected by the outstanding amount? (the outstanding amount still needs to be cleared)

    or is the bank balance correct and the outstanding amount needs to be dismissed?

    Is the trial balance correct?

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Unfortunately the bank balance needs to be adjusted, it is over by 400.45, otherwise I think I would just pretend I never noticed that the outstanding amount was wrong LOL.  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    So the item was cleared by the bank, but has not been cleared in reconciliation?  How were you reconciled all these months?

    Try running a reconciliation with a future date of  say Dec 31,9999

    see if the non-existent item shows up, or if the bank balance corrects.

    If the balance corrects and no item shows up. Run an activity report on the account with a future date, see if you discover an item.

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Won't let me put in a date that is past my fiscal year end, which is nov 30 2014, which I tried and nothing showed up.  I was reading about resetting the reconciliation, but it sounds to me like I would have to add prior outstanding from all the way back to  2003 when it last balanced??  REALLY really don't want to do that!!!!1

Reply
  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Won't let me put in a date that is past my fiscal year end, which is nov 30 2014, which I tried and nothing showed up.  I was reading about resetting the reconciliation, but it sounds to me like I would have to add prior outstanding from all the way back to  2003 when it last balanced??  REALLY really don't want to do that!!!!1

Children
  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Hi Nenos

    You do NOT need to reset your bank reconciliation. What you need to do it make a general journal entry as of your latest bank statement to offset the $400.25.

    What basically has happened is way back someone posted 400.25 to the bank account in error (should have been a credit card). This was never corrected, therefore it has been an outstanding amount in your bank reconciliation all this years and your bank balance has been out by 400.25 all these years.

    My suggestion for the entry is as follows

    Debit your bank account for 400.25

    Credit your an expense account for 400.25 (this could be your account you setup for bank rec adjustments or the interest and bank charges account)

    With making this entry it will have the offset in your bank rec that you need to clearing the outstanding item from many many years ago. NO need to go and redo all the bank recs because this item was never cleared properly years ago and never caught. So to fix it you post the general journal entry in your current fiscal year.

    In my 20 plus years of doing Bank Recs in Sage 50/Simply I have seen this happen time and time again. And the above entry will help your situation.

    Jo Anne

  • 0 in reply to The Software Coach

    Hi Jo Anne,

    Would not the credit card account be out then as well?

    You might get the bank balance right, but the phantom outstanding will remain.

    If she has too much in the bank account, how would debiting it help?

    Would not crediting an expense increase net income?

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Hi Nenos,

    Can you run a report with a future Date?

    Are there any utilities that allow you to see all entries in your Bank Account.

    Sorry, I do not use simply Accounting, but use DacEasy, and it has different features.

    I am just trying to help you figure out from an accounting point what needs to be done.

    It would be helpful, If you would be more specific. such as "debit or credit", rather than just "out by".

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Hi JSB

    There are many possibilities here. My response is just one possible way of fixing the problem. It may or may not solve it. I do not know all the details, nor can I see the actual reports she is looking at or the processes she used to find the amounts.

    Jo Anne

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    I know none of it makes any sense.  If I print off the account reconciliation detail report for nov1-30 2003 the adjusted statement end balance and the adjusted book balance are the same - Balanced.  If I print off the same report for Dec 1-30 2003 the adjusted statement end balance is 400.45 less than the adjusted book balance - Not Balanced!!  So I looked at the Statement end balance as of 11/30/2003 and the Statement Balance Forward as of 12/01/2003 and they are out by 400.45.  Should the end balance and the balance forwarded not be the same.  How can they be different??  I printed out all the transactions for the 11/30/2003 and 12/01/2003 and there is no transaction for that amount, and none of the transactions add up to that amount.  The credit card charge that was for that amount can't be related as it was in 2008.  If I do a Journal entry it throws my unresolved out or I have to leave it unclicked forever, so that it will always be in my outstanding??  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    I am really beginning to think it is a glitch in the program, as every time I try and bring up the transactions for that date, it comes up with this error message :  The program detected and error in your data when looking for information related to record.  You may want to restore your latest backup.   It lets me look at the entries for like a minute before coming up with this message and it let me print it off before coming up with the error,  After the error comes up, it won't let me do anything, until I close the report.

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Glitches never make sense, they create problems.

    All I am looking for is to establish the current facts.

    Please give the last six digits of your actual Bank Statement Balance

    Please give the last six digits of your adjusted reconciliation Balance

    You now say: you have to leave it unclicked for ever. Does that mean the amount is showing that you can click on?

    Please answer the questions, so I can decipher what has happened.

  • 0 in reply to JSB

      The amount is not showing for me to click, but if I did a Journal Entry to correct the balance it would be and I could never clear it as it will never be on the bank statement.  So it will forever be on the reconciliation report.

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    so if you were to reconcile the next month's bank statement, does the physical bank statement's opening balance match the Sage reconciliation opening balance ? or is there the 400.45 difference ?

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    I think you do have a data error and yet somehow it still allowed you and those before you to post the bank recs all those years. I would suggest the following:

    Do a Save As of your data files and call it something like Bank Rec Testing (you will still have your regular data files to go back to). Then in this data file called 'Bank Rec Testing' reset your bank rec, re-enter the account nbrs for the interest charges etc. Then let's say that your latest bank rec posted was June/14 and enter all the outstanding transaction from your MAY31/14 bank rec. Now enter the start date of bank rec as Jun1/14 and end date as Jun30/14. Then continue with doing the bank rec for month of June/14 and see if that does solve the problem of o/s transactions not adding to o/s total shown on bank rec.

    If this still show the same discrepancy then I would suggest to try contacting outside help such as Tony Martin from Code 6 Programming (Google this) to see if he can help with this issue - he has used Sage/Simply for years, an expert in correcting data errors, and will be able to let you know if he can correct this for you.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    Sorry Nenos - just rereading your response and you said

    ""If I print off the same report for Dec 1-30 2003 the adjusted statement end balance is 400.45 less than the adjusted book balance - Not Balanced!!  So I looked at the Statement end balance as of 11/30/2003 and the Statement Balance Forward as of 12/01/2003 and they are out by 400.45""

    This is a glitch so do not worry about doing a Save As and redoing bank rec (unless you want to do it just so you know how to do it). As you have said this is not right so I would suggest calling Sage Tech again with this specific error and if that doesn't work then try an outside help as suggested earlier.

  • 0 in reply to Smith and Co

    I did try that, but landed up with a discrepancy of like 5,000.00 and an unresolved of 400.45!!!! ECKKK!! I am really beginning to hate that number 400.45 lol.  Think I will try it again, as I must have done something wrong to have landed up with a big discrepancy,  Will play around with it a little more and try and figure it out, might be that I am using the wrong new starting balance.  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    Hi Nenos

    There are so many possibilities and variations as to what may or may not be right or wrong with you bank reconciliation.

    Smithco makes a great recommendation in her recent Post:

    "try an outside help as suggested earlier"

    "I would suggest calling Sage Tech again with this specific error"

    "Tony Martin from Code 6 Programming"

    Please try one or more of those and you will finally get to the bottom of this.

    You can also follow this link to Sage Support Knowledge base to help with doing bank reconciliations:

    http://goo.gl/MVbGNE

    It could also be this problem that Smithco was referring to:

    "Resolved amount shown in the bank reconciliation while no entry has been cleared. Article

    Products

    Sage 50—Canadian Edition

    Description

    The bank reconciliation window is showing "Resolved" as with amounts, yet there has not been a single transaction check marked.

    Cause

    When client is using deposit slip, withdrawal and deposit from and to the same bank account, then void one of the transactions within that deposit slip, since deposit slips are not reversible; the bank rec has to show the correction on resolved amount

    Resolution

    Method I: Bank Rec Reset

    Reset your bank reconciliation (see Related Resources)

    Method II:

    Avoid create deposit slip using the same account in From and To.

    Method III:

    Run "Fix Bankrec" using the Support Utilities. For assistance with this step, please contact Sage 50 Support at 1-888-522-2722.

    Check & uncheck the checkbox of Do not show corrections in the bank reconciliation."

    But to be honest I think your best bet is "Try an outside help" as Smithco recommends.

    Here is a link to Outside Help:

    edirectory.accpac.com/simplysearch

    Hope this will help you move forward with this.

    Jo Anne

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    are these the beginning balances before any transactions are reconciled ? because the difference is only 372.87

    I presume the 27.58 is a transaction in Sage that hasn't yet cleared the bank

    what you want to know is the beginning sage and bank balances before reconciling... they should be the same

    if not, as Coach suggested, create a JE (db/cr bank and cr/db expense account) so that when you select/reconcile just that transaction, sage and bank are the same

    reconcile the statement as you normally would, so that the ending sage and bank balances are identical (ignoring outstanding transactions)

    then next month, sage and bank beginning balances will match

    it could be that back in 2003, someone reset the bank rec and entered the incorrect opening balance

  • 0 in reply to Roger L

    Hi CRBookkeeping,

    The error is profit/loss neutral; so to create an expense would have profit/loss implications.

    That is not the way.

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Hi Nenos,

    The next thing to verify is your trial balance, that it is correct.

    Run a report for all transactions for the bank account, and verify that the balance is the same as your bank statement. (adjusting only the actual outstanding)(and no discrepancy between it and trial balance) only discrepancy would be in reconciliation balance by the phantom amount.)

    Assuming the above is so:

    From an accounting point the problem does not involve a profit/loss transaction, nor a balance sheet imbalance.

    Your financials are good; the only thing that is out is reconciliation.

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    somebody that knows simply well, should know of utilities or editors to discover the outstanding reconciliation file so that it can be corrected.

  • 0 in reply to JSB
    verified answer

    Thank you Smithco, for suggesting Tony Martin,  emailed him the problem, and confirmed it was probably a data error, but not worth fixing it as it is so far back. but suggested doing the journal entry to fix the balance, then reset my reconciliation, AND IT WORKED!!!! YAY!!!  I had tried several times to reset the reconciliation but kept coming up with that same amount in the unresolved instead of in the outstanding and a couple of times end with a big discrepancy amount, was very frustrating.   But all fixed now,  Thank you everyone for listening and trying to help.  :)

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    No problem at all - glad to hear it all worked out in the end and mostly due to your perseverance to continually answering questions from us all and digging into the previous years rec to find the original error - that was great work!

    Tony helped me in a very similar situation to yours with similar answer. It also looked like Jo the Software Coach was going in the right direction too re journal entry - just needed the bank rec to finish it off.

    Glad you gave out the solution as per Tony's answer for future reference.

  • 0 in reply to The Software Coach

    Hi Nenos,

    What kind of Journal entry did you do, and for what date?

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Credited my bank account and Debited the bank adjustment account and just used yesterday's date.  Not sure what the accountant will do with it at year end, but my rec balances, and my bank account balance is now right, so for day to day operations, it is good.  LOL  

  • 0 in reply to Nenos

    So, is the phantom amount in outstanding now gone?

  • 0 in reply to JSB

    Yes it is!  But I had to reset my bank reconciliation as well as do the journal entry, or the journal entry would be sitting in the reconciliation forever, as I could never clear it as being on the bank statement as it never would be.