Reading a reconciliation that moved under you — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This presentation is for whoever owns the month-end close at GadgetSphere. In about eleven minutes you will be able to look at a reconciliation whose difference has changed since you signed it off, and say within a minute which half moved, what moved it, and whether anything is actually wrong.

Step 1 — Know which two of the four balances are yours

After this step you will halve every reconciliation question before you start. The header carries four figures. The two bank statement balances are typed off the bank’s own paper by a person, and nothing in the platform ever writes them; they are as fixed as the statement they came from. The two cash book balances are BigLedger’s: worked out from your cash book lines when the session is created, stored, and refreshed later where your tenant runs the refresh job. Beneath the closing, a greyed calculated line follows your cash book every time you open the session. So when a difference changes overnight, it is always the cash book half that moved, and you already know which half to investigate.

Reference: Everything is matched to zero and the bank reconciliation still won’t tally — The 30-second check

Step 2 — Know that the recompute reaches every open session, not just this one

After this step you will stop assuming a closed month is closed. Whenever a cash book line is written, voided or re-dated, BigLedger asks for a refresh, and a background job running every thirty minutes reworks the stored opening and closing of every active reconciliation on that cash book, not just the one you have open. A receipt keyed in April and dated into March moves March, whether or not anyone is looking. That job runs only where it is scheduled on your tenant; where it is not, the stored figures stay as they were at Create, and only the greyed calculated line moves. That is why differences appear from one month onwards, with every earlier month still clean.

Reference: Everything is matched to zero and the bank reconciliation still won’t tally — What actually happened

Step 3 — Know that matching is not a change

After this step you will trust the screen while you work in it. The refresh works the figure out from the cash book lines themselves: which are active, how much they are for, and when they are dated. Matching a line changes none of those — it only reduces the open amount on both sides — so an afternoon spent on the Reconcile tab never shifts the header balance underneath you. Everything that does shift it is a change to the money itself: a line arriving, a line leaving, an amount changing, a date moving. That is a useful filter for any list of suspects.

Reference: Everything is matched to zero and the bank reconciliation still won’t tally — What actually happened

Step 4 — Meet the line that was never written at all

After this step you will stop hunting for a line that does not exist. Every document records whether its cash book side ran: blank means it never did, posted means the lines exist, void means they have been removed. A finalised receipt with a blank cash book status and no line never reaches the Reconcile tab, and no amount of re-matching will find it. Financial Report, Error Checking, Trace Document takes a document type and a number and reports exactly this as a missing cash book, with a Resolve button that posts the lines without voiding or re-keying anything.

Reference: Financial Report — Error Checking

Step 5 — Know that unposting is a separate subscription from posting

After this step you will know why one company behaves unlike another. Which subsystems post when you finalise, and which unpost when you void, are two independent sets of subscriptions on your own tenant, and nothing provisions them as a pair. So a tenant can post to the cash book on finalise and have no cash book subscriber for voids at all. On such a tenant, voiding a receipt leaves the document reading void and its cash book line sitting in your reconciliation, still matched, still counted. The document’s own cash book posting status is what tells you.

Reference: I voided the document and the report still shows it: what a void undoes — Which of the ten run on your tenant, and where the two lists differ

Step 6 — Run the thirty-second routine

After this step you will have one procedure covering all of it. Read the greyed calculated line under the cash book closing and compare it with the stored figure; if they differ, the cash book moved after the stored figure was worked out, by exactly that amount. The refresh icon beside it is disabled, so do not wait on it. Compare the cash book closing balance with the number you signed off. Then list that cash book’s lines for the period and sort by the date they were created rather than the date they carry: anything created after you closed the session is your candidate, and its document will tell you whether it arrived, left, or changed. Only then look at the matched lines, and usually you will not need to.

Reference: Everything is matched to zero and the bank reconciliation still won’t tally — The 30-second check

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Know which two of the four balances are yours"]
  s2["Step 2 — Know that the recompute reaches every open session, not just this one"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know that matching is not a change"]
  s4["Step 4 — Meet the line that was never written at all"]
  s5["Step 5 — Know that unposting is a separate subscription from posting"]
  s6["Step 6 — Run the thirty-second routine"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

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