Post the fix that fits a bank reconciliation variance

Step 8 of the bank reconciliation guide, second half: post only what needs posting. It comes after the first half, where you named every line still open. Timing items need no entry, duplicates need a void, a wrong date needs the source document corrected, and only money that genuinely moved with nothing recorded needs a new document. GadgetSphere’s RM 450 turns out to be a bank charge, and this page posts it.

1. Now post only what needs posting: where money moved and nothing was recorded, a voucher, never a manual journal.
2. If the stored closing is older than your fix.
3. If it still does not resolve.

Step 8, continued: post the fix that fits it

Now post only what needs posting

Look back at your table rows. Timing items need no entry. Duplicates need a void. A wrong date needs the source document corrected. Only the bank-side rows where money genuinely moved and nothing was recorded need a new document — and for those, the document has to be a voucher.

Do not reach for a manual journal. 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 variance would stay open for ever.

GadgetSphere’s RM 450, worked through the method in the first half of Step 8. Your side is higher, so it is money in you have that the bank has not, or money out the bank has that you have not. Report 3 shows the opening difference at zero and nothing matched into another period, so it is not inherited and it is not timing. The cashbook unmatched balance is zero and the bank unmatched balance is RM 450 — the whole variance is on the bank side, bucket 4. On Manual Matching > Bank Statement Lines one line still carries an open amount: 31 March, RM 450, described Quarterly Account Maintenance. A search of the cashbook for RM 450 around that date returns nothing, and no document in BigLedger relates to it. That is row seven of the table: a charge the bank took and nobody booked.

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.

Now go back to the Details tab and read both of your closing figures. The greyed Calculated line reads RM 47,200 — the bank’s figure — because the voucher’s line now sits inside the period. If the stored Cash Book Transaction Closing Balance above it reads RM 47,200 as well, the variance is closed. If it still reads RM 47,650, it was worked out before the voucher existed. Give the background job about half an hour, then open the session again: if the stored figure has moved to RM 47,200, the job runs on your tenant and you are done. If it never moves, the job is not scheduled for you, and the next section is for you.

Had that RM 450 turned out to be a deposit the bank cleared on 2 April, the right answer would have been to post nothing and let Report 1 carry it as a reconciling item. Had it been the same supplier payment keyed twice, the right answer would have been to void one of them. The voucher above is correct for this cause and wrong for those — which is why the table comes before the posting.

If the stored closing is older than your fix

Every line is matched, the greyed Calculated line agrees with the bank, and Report 1’s variance is not zero. Subtract the calculated closing from the stored one: in GadgetSphere’s month that is RM 47,650 minus RM 47,200, RM 450 — the voucher you just posted, to the cent. Report 1 starts from the stored figure, which was worked out before the voucher existed. It is not a new difference, and posting anything to make it go away would create one.

If the stored figure catches up within about half an hour, the background job did it and there is nothing to choose. If it does not, the job that keeps it current is not scheduled on your tenant, and what to do about the stale figure is a choice, and each choice costs something:

• Keep the session and explain the figure. Note on the pack that Report 1’s variance equals the stored minus the calculated closing, and name the documents posted since you created the session. The cost: everyone who reads the pack has to follow the arithmetic, and a later difference can hide inside the one you explained.
• Delete the session and create it again. The new session stores figures that include your fix. The cost: deleting a session also deletes the statements uploaded to it and every match in it, so you upload and match again.
• Ask BigLedger to recalculate, or to schedule the job. BigLedger can rerun the calculation, but it reruns it for every active session on your tenant, not this one alone; scheduling the job keeps every session current from then on. The cost: the wait, and earlier months whose cashbook lines have changed get new stored figures that no longer agree with packs already printed.

Which of these your team uses is for whoever signs off the month to decide, once, and write down.

If it still does not resolve

If you have worked every open line and the variance will not go, do not make it disappear. Unmatched Adjustment will take a line off the unmatched list and posts nothing, so using it to force a tidy Report 3 buries a real difference under a clean-looking one. Leave the session as it is, keep the reports showing the true variance, and take the unexplained amount to whoever signs off your month — an unexplained RM 450 that is visible is a much smaller problem than an explained RM 450 that is wrong.

If you void a document after its cashbook line has been reconciled, BigLedger undoes the match for you, without saying so. It deletes the cashbook line from the session, deletes the saved match with it, and adds the matched amount back onto the bank statement line, which reappears on your unmatched list at its full amount. A session you had already signed off now has an open bank line again, and nothing on the screen says why. So Unreconcile first, then void. The bank line still comes back as open, but now you know why, and you can match it to the replacement document straight away.

Next: Steps 9 and 10, the audit pack and the sign-off.

Common mistakes in this part

Related documentation

• Bank reconciliation guide, the whole task, with its success check.
• Payment Voucher (Internal) applet, for the voucher that writes the cashbook line.
• Financial Report applet, for Trace Document and its Missing Cashbook check.