Bank Reconciliation Guide

By the end of this guide, you will have matched every line on your primary bank’s March 2026 statement to your BigLedger cashbook, found the RM 450 difference that has been bothering your finance manager all week, posted the journal that explains it, and saved an audit pack ready for Friday’s sign-off. Plan on about 30 minutes the first time you do this for a cashbook; once the routine sticks, you will be in and out in 15. You will work mostly in the Bank Reconciliation applet, with brief detours to the Cashbook and Ledger and Journal applets when the variance needs a fix.

Meet GadgetSphere

GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd runs 22 consumer-electronics branches across Malaysia, with most receipts banking into the primary-bank account for each store. This morning the March 2026 statement for the Klang Valley branch 01 cashbook (GS-KV-01) landed in your inbox. The bank says the closing balance is RM 47,200; BigLedger says RM 47,650. The RM 450 gap has to be explained, the reconciliation has to be closed, and the audit pack has to sit on the finance manager’s desk before Friday.

A few terms to get straight

• Reconciliation session — one row that holds the work for a single cashbook over a single date range. It carries the four balances (your opening and closing, the bank’s opening and closing) and is what you create, fill, and eventually set to CLOSE.
• Cashbook line vs. cash statement line — a cashbook line is what BigLedger thinks happened: it is written when a Receipt Voucher, Payment Voucher, POS settlement or Cash Transfer reaches FINAL. A manual journal, however correct, writes no cashbook line — remember that when you get to Step 8. A cash statement line is what the bank says happened (one row imported from the bank file). Reconciliation pairs the two.
• Confirmed link vs. possible link — a confirmed link is a saved pairing between a cashbook line and a statement line. A possible link is a candidate the auto-matcher found but is not confident enough to save on its own, so it parks the suggestion for you to review and confirm.

Before you start

• The Chart of Accounts is set up and your sales, purchase, and POS (Point of Sale) documents are posting cleanly. See the Chart of Accounts Setup Guide if you are not sure.
• The cashbook for the branch you are reconciling exists in the Cashbook applet. For this guide, the cashbook code is GS-KV-01 and it points to your primary-bank current account.
• All settlement methods used by Receipt Voucher (Internal), Payment Voucher (Internal), and in-store POS terminals for GS-KV-01 already post to that same cashbook. If they post somewhere else, fix that first or your variance hunt will go nowhere.
• The company timezone is set to Asia/Kuala_Lumpur in the Organisation applet. Reconciliation uses this to decide which transactions fall inside March 2026.
• The February 2026 reconciliation for GS-KV-01 exists with the right closing balances, so the March opening balances have something to inherit (BigLedger pre-fills them from the cashbook’s most recent session).
• Your March 2026 bank statement file is downloaded and ready, in either your primary bank’s native format or the generic CSV (Comma-Separated Values) format.
• You are a member of the GS-KV-01 cashbook (Cashbook applet > Members tab) — the Bank Reconciliation create screen only lists cashbooks you are a member of — and your user holds the Bank Reconciliation, Cash Statement and Cashbook Transaction Line permissions your administrator assigned through the Permission Wizard. Roles are whatever your tenant named them; the permissions are what count.

Step 1: Confirm the cashbook is wired to the right bank account

Master Data > Cashbook

Open the Cashbook applet and find GS-KV-01. Check three things before you touch the reconciliation screen.

First, the cashbook’s company is GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd (GS), the branch is Klang Valley 01, the currency is Malaysian Ringgit (RM), and the linked General Ledger account reads CASH-PRI-KV01 (cash, primary bank, KV branch 01).

Second, open the Settlement Method listing (it is a separate menu item in the Cashbook applet, not a tab on the cashbook) and filter it to GS-KV-01’s branch. Every method the branch uses — the POS card terminal, the POS cash drawer, the bank-transfer method your accounts clerks pick on a Receipt Voucher (Internal) or a Payment Voucher (Internal) — has a Cashbook field on its Details tab, and each one should read GS-KV-01. If any of them point to a different cashbook, the receipts will never appear on this reconciliation and the variance hunt will lead you in circles.

Third, open the Weightage Configuration tab and confirm there is an ACTIVE configuration. Without it, the auto-matcher falls back to its built-in rule — equal weights, and an automatic link only when the amount is exact and the payee name is near-identical — so almost everything ends up as a possible match instead of a confirmed one.

Fix anything wrong here before moving on. A misrouted settlement method is the single most common reason a reconciliation refuses to close.

If you see receipts in the branch’s daily takings report that are missing from this cashbook, a settlement method is almost certainly wired to a different cashbook. Fix the mapping in Cashbook first, then come back.

Step 2: Create the March 2026 reconciliation session for GS-KV-01

Bank Reconciliation > New

From the sidebar, open Bank Reconciliation. You should see February 2026 for GS-KV-01 near the top of the list (group the listing by cashbook if the list is long). Click New.

On the create form, pick Company GS and then the cashbook GS-KV-01. The cashbook list only shows cashbooks you are a member of — if GS-KV-01 is missing, that is the Members tab in the Cashbook applet, not a bug. Branch pre-fills from your Default Selection; leave it.

Stop here for a moment and check the cashbook once more. It is immutable once the session is created — you cannot change it later without deleting the whole session — so getting this right now matters. If you picked the wrong one, close the form without saving and start again.

Once you are sure you have the right cashbook, you are ready to set the period.

If GS-KV-01 does not appear in the cashbook list, ask your administrator to add you as a member of that cashbook and to check your Bank Reconciliation permissions.

Step 3: Set the period and enter the four balances

Bank Reconciliation > (your new session) > Details

Set Opening Date to 1 March 2026 and Closing Date to 31 March 2026. The form refuses an Opening Date on or before February’s Closing Date (Opening date should be later than … based on the cashbook selected), which is the nudge that stops two sessions overlapping. The Name field auto-fills to March 2026 from the Opening Date. Leave it unless your team uses a different naming style.

Now the four balance fields. Cash Book Transaction Opening Balance is read-only and already filled with February’s cashbook closing balance — RM 41,830 for GS-KV-01. Beneath Cash Statement Opening Balance there is a Prev Cash Stmt Closing Bal hint button that copies in February’s bank closing balance; click it and RM 41,830 lands on that side too.

Now type in the Cash Statement Closing Balance from your bank statement: RM 47,200. Leave Cash Book Transaction Closing Balance alone; it is read-only and will be calculated for you. Leave Status alone as well — a new session starts as Processing and you will set it to CLOSE only when the work is done.

If the pre-filled opening balance is wrong, February’s session is wrong — its closing date is not 28 February 2026, or a February voucher was voided after the close. Fix February first; otherwise March inherits a bad opening balance.

Step 4: Save and check the calculated cashbook balance

Bank Reconciliation > (your new session) > Details > Save

Click Save, then Refresh calculated balance on the Details tab. BigLedger adds up every active cashbook line for GS-KV-01 dated 1 March to 31 March (in your company’s Kuala Lumpur timezone) and writes the result into Cash Book Transaction Closing Balance. Voided receipts, payments, and POS settlements are excluded automatically.

Re-open the Details tab. You should now see your side: Cash Book Transaction Opening RM 41,830, Cash Book Transaction Closing RM 47,650. Compare against the bank side: Cash Statement Opening RM 41,830, Cash Statement Closing RM 47,200. Openings match. Closings disagree by RM 450 (47,650 minus 47,200). That is exactly the gap your finance manager flagged.

Make a note: BigLedger thinks GS-KV-01 has RM 450 more than the bank does. The variance must therefore be either a cashbook line the bank has not honoured yet, or a bank charge the bank already took but you have not posted.

If your closing comes out wildly different from what you expected (more than the RM 450 you already know about), check whether a January or February voucher was back-dated into March. Fix the source date and re-save.

Step 5: Upload the March bank statement

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Upload Statement

Switch to the Upload Statement tab and open the upload form. Choose your bank’s layout from the Import Format list — BigLedger ships a parser per Malaysian bank export (several banks have a -01 / -02 variant for their different internet-banking layouts, and a Pdf variant for PDF statements). If your bank is not on the list, pick Default Format, download the template CSV from the form, and paste your statement into its columns.

Bank Statement Name pre-fills from the file name; rename it to something like 2026-03 Primary KV01 so future-you can find it again. Attach the statement file and upload. The file becomes a Cash Statement record for this session.

Open that Cash Statement and its View Statement tab, and scan the parsed rows. Each row shows the bank’s transaction date, payor, references, description, and amount. If the upload was rejected with The Headers Order Does Not Match The Expected Order, you exported a different layout from the format you chose — try the other numbered variant of the same bank, or fall back to Default Format. A PDF that comes back with No transactions found is a layout the parser does not know; export a CSV instead.

Once you can see your statement lines, you are ready to let BigLedger do the heavy matching.

If you used Default Format and some rows are missing, open Default Statement Helper, click the file, and read the Checking tab: it names the rows whose Transaction Date, Amount or Payee/Payor Name failed validation. Fix them in the CSV and upload again; rows with errors are never promoted into the reconciliation.

Step 6: Run Auto Matching and wait for it to finish

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Auto Matching > Run

Switch to the Auto Matching tab and click Run Automatching. Every button on the tab greys out while Processing Auto Matching is on. The matcher is now scoring every possible pairing of cashbook line to bank statement line using the weights you set up in Cashbook (amount, date, reference, payee), looking at cashbook lines from 90 days before your Opening Date to 90 days after your Closing Date so that a February receipt the bank only cleared in March can still find its partner.

Pairs that score at or above your threshold are saved as confirmed links. Pairs that score well but below the threshold are parked as possible links for you to review. Weak pairs are dropped. Unless you ticked one-to-one matching, it also looks for up to five open cashbook lines that add up to a single statement line — the shape a card-acquirer settlement usually has.

Wait until the buttons come back before doing anything else; running the reports while the matcher is still working will give you half-finished numbers. The screen re-checks the job after a minute and then every 30 seconds. When it is done, click Refresh on the Summary / Matched / Open panel and note the three counts before moving on.

If the buttons never come back, the background job failed before it could clear the flag. Ask your administrator to look at the job queue log; do not run the reports in the meantime.

Step 7: Confirm or reject the possible matches

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Manual Matching > Reconcile

Still on the Auto Matching tab, open Unmatched Txn Lines. Each cashbook line the matcher was not confident enough to link is listed with the statement line it thinks is the candidate. Walk down the list.

For each row, eyeball four things: date within a day or two, amount matches to the cent, reference looks right (your receipt or payment number on one side and the bank’s transfer reference on the other), and the payor or payee name is recognisable. If all four agree, click Add (or Reconcile on the bank-side listing). The possible link becomes a confirmed link and the row disappears.

If the candidate is clearly wrong (for example, the matcher paired your RM 1,200 supplier payment with a RM 1,200 customer receipt because the amount was identical and nothing else on the statement line carried data), leave it and match it by hand instead: on the Manual Matching tab’s Reconcile sub-tab, click the cashbook line, pick the right statement line under Matched Bank Statement Lines, and click Reconcile. Partial matches are allowed — a RM 1,000 statement line can be settled by three cashbook lines.

Work top to bottom. Most months for GS-KV-01 will leave you with a handful of true exceptions, plus the RM 450 you are still hunting.

If you confirm a wrong pair by accident, go to Manual Matching > Unreconcile, find the line, and Undo Reconcile before you continue; the link is deleted and the open amount goes back on both sides.

Step 8: Find the RM 450 variance and post the adjustment journal

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Manual Matching > Bank Statement Lines, then Finance > Payment Voucher (Internal)

Switch to the Bank Statement Lines sub-tab and look for lines still carrying an open amount. The list should now be short. Look for a line on the bank side that has no partner on the cashbook side: in this scenario, you spot a 31 March entry for RM 450 with the description Quarterly Account Maintenance. That is the bank’s quarterly service charge, which the bank has already deducted from your account but which has not been booked in BigLedger. This is the RM 450 you are looking for.

Do not reach for a manual journal here. A journal debiting bank charges and crediting CASH-PRI-KV01 would put the ledger right, but it writes no cashbook line — cashbook lines are only created when a voucher, POS settlement or cash transfer goes FINAL — so the reconciliation would never see it and the RM 450 would stay open for ever. Book it as a voucher instead.

Open the Payment Voucher (Internal) applet in a new tab and create a voucher dated 31 March 2026 with the bank as the payee:

• Expenses tab: one line to EXPENSE-BANK-CHARGES (bank charges expense), RM 450, description Mar 2026 quarterly service charge - primary bank GS-KV-01
• Payment tab: one payment line of RM 450 using GS-KV-01’s bank-transfer settlement method — that is what routes the line into this cashbook

Set it to FINAL. FINAL queues two background jobs, and within a few seconds they write the cashbook line and the journal (Dr EXPENSE-BANK-CHARGES / Cr CASH-PRI-KV01). If the cashbook line does not appear on the Reconcile tab after a minute, the voucher is still FINAL but its cashbook job failed — almost always because the settlement method you picked has no cashbook (the job log says MISSING_CASHBOOK) or the cashbook has no GL code (MISSING_GL_CODE). Fix the settlement method, then run Financial Report > Error Checking > Trace Document on the voucher: its Missing Cashbook check has a Resolve button that writes the line. Return to the reconciliation, re-run Auto Matching (Step 6) or match it by hand, and the new cashbook line pairs with the bank’s RM 450 charge. Click Refresh calculated balance on the Details tab: the two closing balances now both read RM 47,200. Variance closed.

There is also an Unmatched Adjustment button on a line’s matching screen. It is for the opposite case — a cashbook line the bank will never show, such as a rounding residue — and it only closes the line on the reconciliation; it posts nothing, so the accounting still needs a voucher.

If you reconcile a cashbook line and then void its source document later, the link is left dangling and the next reconciliation looks wrong; always Unreconcile first, then void.

Step 9: Generate Reports 1, 2 and 3 as the audit pack

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Report

Open the Report tab. Three reports are available, each with its own Generate Report button:

• Report 1 starts from the bank statement closing balance, adds and removes the cashbook lines unmatched this period and the lines matched against a previous or future period’s statement, and arrives at the expected cashbook closing and the variance. It is the report that tells you which side a variance sits on.
• Report 2 is the reconciling-items schedule — balance as per cash book, balance as per bank statement, the items between them, and the discrepancy — useful when an auditor asks you to walk through individual matches.
• Report 3 is the sectioned overview: cashbook and bank opening and closing balances, matched and unmatched balances on each side, cross-period matches, and the difference in opening balances. This is the one to keep as the period’s evidence.

Generate all three. Export each grid and save the files into your shared finance folder under 2026-03 Bank Recon / GS-KV-01 / together with the original bank statement file and the bank-charges payment voucher from Step 8.

Open Report 3 and double-check the bottom line: Cash Book Closing RM 47,200, Bank Statement Closing RM 47,200, and the unmatched balance sections on both the cashbook and the bank side at zero. Then open Report 1 and confirm its Variance / discrepancy line reads RM 0. If either report still shows something outstanding, do not save the pack; go back to Step 6 because either Auto Matching has not finished or you have a stray unmatched line. The audit pack must reconcile to zero before you stop.

If Report 1 contradicts what you see on screen, Auto Matching probably has not finished its background work; wait, then regenerate.

Step 10: Set the session to CLOSE — and know what that does not do

Bank Reconciliation > (your session) > Details > Status

Return to the Details tab. Change Status to CLOSE and click Save. That is the signal to the rest of the team that March is done for GS-KV-01, and April’s session will pick up March’s closing balances as its openings.

Be clear about what CLOSE does not do: it locks nothing. Links can still be undone in a closed session, and a voucher back-dated into March later will change the cashbook side of March and distort April’s opening balance. The one guard BigLedger does enforce is on the vouchers themselves — while a receipt or payment voucher’s cashbook line is linked in any session, the server refuses to change its amount or transfer details (Cashbook txn lines are bank-reconciled. Unreconcile them from the bank recon … before changing amounts). Voiding is not blocked, which is why Step 8 says unreconcile first.

So part of the controller’s job is to keep an eye on the GS-KV-01 cashbook for back-dated entries between now and April’s close, and to set the March fiscal period to LOCK_TXN in Chart of Account once the month is fully closed — a voucher dated into a LOCK_TXN month is refused at FINAL with The selected date falls within a locked fiscal period, so nothing new can land on March’s cashbook side. (Stock transfers are the one document type that lock does not check; they carry no cashbook line, so they cannot disturb a reconciliation.)

Send a short note to your finance manager confirming March 2026 GS-KV-01 is reconciled with zero variance, point them at the audit pack folder, and you are done.

If Save fails with a permission error, your user has read but not write permission on Bank Reconciliation; ask your administrator to adjust it through the Permission Wizard.

What success looks like

Open Report 3 for the March 2026 GS-KV-01 reconciliation. The cashbook closing balance and the bank statement closing balance both read RM 47,200 and the unmatched balances on both sides are zero. The session Status is CLOSE. In your shared finance folder, the bank statement file, Report 1, Report 2, Report 3, and the bank-charges payment voucher are all sitting together. If any of those five items is missing or any number is off, you are not done yet.

Common mistakes

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