I’m treasurer of a Men’s Shed and I reconsile all the time.
OK, my proceedures: Four committee members have debit cards.
They always bring receipts and write up purchase notes on a form and then into a book.
We also do credit card transactions, membership, buying some stuff we make.
I add the sales and purchases into Managerwith the datesin the description as credit card amounts do not come out on the day.
I download a CSV file from the bank, (in LibraOffice) I then adjust the dates for transactions to match the bank dates.
I then go to Bank accounts and click on the dollar value to bring up all the transactions for that
account and reconsile with my CSV from the bank. I have some 600 transactions/year and do this weekly usually at home (server version) in peace. Remember, the bank is “always right”.
Suspense entries should never stand in the way of reconciliation. In fact, suspense entries are often necessary for reconciliation. In small businesses, especially in places like where I live, you may find payments on a bank statement that are not yet recorded in the general ledger. In such cases, you would need to create a suspense entry by crediting the bank account and debiting the suspense account while waiting for more information to correctly classify the transaction.
I once worked under a business owner who carried the company cheque book in his pocket and occasionally illegally made personal transactions with it. Some of these only came to my attention when the bank statements arrived.
An update on my issues with reconciliation accounts in trying to finalise our accounts for the auditor I’ve noticed another issue which may be related to reconciliation
In Summary “Cash and Cash Accounts” I’m seeing the credits and debits reversed is this correct
I’m not an account so not sure how it all should work; I’m attaching a pic showing the issue
I’ve spent days trying to reconcile the accounts to no avail, I may have asked before is there any way that I can reconcile from the 1st of January 2025 even if we lose historical data
The Bank records transactions from their perspective and when you enter these into an accounting programme you are recording the transactions from your perspective. So, Bank statement debits will be credits in Manager and a bank statement credit will be a debit in Manager.
It is very unlikely that you will get your bank to reconcile while you have amounts in the Suspense Account and/or amounts in the Inter Account Transfers account.
So your first step is to drill down on these amounts and correct any errors or omissions in these transactions.
Once these amounts are corrected and cleared then start from your first reconciliation and ensure that transactions are recorded in Manager at their correct date or correct cleared date.
Thank you for the response; in trying to get reconciliation working I’ve created a monster, now I need to remove what I created as its inflating the Bank account.
Normally we have used manual reconciliation whereby we create receipts for any income and payments for any outgoings. What I did was create new account codes and assigned all the Eftpos income as Tyro settlement, Cash Deposit, direct credit, eft payment received. Done this to assign the bank statements to the appropriate Accounts codes, unfortunately doing this has caused the bank account to inflate because now we have 2 receipts for the same income, is there a way to remove the receipts from these new account codes without going through the receipts individually and deleting I hope this make sense.
Is there any other way to fix this, appreciate all the help I can get
I think probably the best way to undo those, will be from the history. I don’t know if there is a way of mass undo at the history though. But at least you should see them in the creation order
Thank you, Antonis tried your suggestion unfortunately that is going to take too long and tedious to do I only have a limited amount of time, I’ve downloaded all Payments and Receipts for 2025 into a csv file with the view of creating a new business withe same chart of account codes and start afresh using the correct bank balance from the end of 2025 is a feasible way of attack.
Is there a way to import these into the new business in manager otherwise I would have to create the payments manually that is going to be even worse, any suggestions please
In my opinion this was the most useful image. You have to start by making new reconciliations between 2015, when it balanced, and 20 Oct 2020 when it didn’t. To keep it simple choose, say, 1 Jan for each year (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). If 1 Jan 2016 doesn’t reconcile then go back 1 month at a time until you get your first correct balance. Let’s say it balances on 1 June 2015 but doesn’t balance on 1 July 2015, then you know that during the month of July 2015 some transactions weren’t correctly imported and you can delete them or add in the missing ones. The most practical way to reconcile is by correcting oldest transactions first.
It doesn’t matter if transactions are still sitting in suspense or inter account transfers. That’s just an allocation issue and can be assigned to the correct expense, income, control or balance sheet accounts once you’ve reconciled the bank accounts.
I really feel for you. It’s clear you’ve put a lot of work into this, and it’s frustrating when the software doesn’t seem to cooperate.
I’d like to offer some perspective that might help clear things up. The struggle you’re having is very common for people who aren’t trained in accounting. Manager.io is a powerful tool, but it relies on “double-entry” logic. When you created those new account codes and imported the statements, the software did exactly what it was told—but because those transactions were already recorded manually, it now thinks you received the money twice. That is why your balance looks inflated.
Regarding the “Search for a Quick Fix”: I noticed you are looking for ways to mass-delete or import CSVs to save time. While I understand you’re on a tight schedule, accounting is unfortunately one of those things where “shortcuts” often lead to more work later. If you import a CSV into a new business without a clear reconciliation plan, you might find yourself back in this same position a few months from now.
The Reality of Reconciliation: Think of reconciliation like a puzzle. If your bank statement and Manager.io are off by even a small amount, it’s usually because of something tiny, like a bank fee or a timed payment that hasn’t cleared yet. An accountant’s secret isn’t a special feature in the software; it’s simply the patience to go line-by-line until that $2 or $5 difference is found.
You have two great paths forward:
The “Slow and Steady” Path: Stop the imports and the technical workarounds. Go back to the last date everything was correct. Reconcile one month at a time. It is tedious, but it is the only way to ensure your sporting club’s records are 100% accurate.
The “Professional Reset” Path: Since your time is limited, it might be worth asking a local bookkeeper to spend a few hours cleaning up the current entries and setting a “Starting Balance” for 2025. They can use the “Batch Delete” tools safely to remove the duplicates you’ve identified.
You are doing a great service for your club! Sometimes the best move is to step back, realize that this is a specialized accounting task, and either take it very slow or bring in a pro to help you reset the clock
Thank you for your suggestion but I believe it will never reconcile as when we started using Manager, we used cheques for payments, and deposits I was advised to do it that way they, were written on a specific date and cleared on a different date and sometimes weeks apart
As I stated earlier, I would prefer to start from scratch from the 1st of January 2025 - 31st December 2025. I’ve all the bank statements, Receipts and Payments from that period and have Copies on paper as well. Is that possible to do please help as to reconcile the bank accounts back to 2015 will never be done even by a bookkeeper there are too many holes, as even before I created the duplicates we always reconciled by Comparing the deposit books, Paper Receipts and Payments by checking off from the Bank statements. I hope you understand what I’m trying to do now, although I’m not an accountant, I worked in IT for 30years until I retired
IT and Accounting are not the same (i have 15 years IT experience myself). Nevertheless, you have 1000+ receipts, thats okay, They All Need to be recorded in Manager. There is no Shortcut to achieve what you want, you have to do the accounting work and reconcile monthly.
About starting from 1st Jan 2025, you can either create a new business in manager, with new starting balances which you will take from bank statement(s) and other records on 31st Dec 2024 . Or you can input some random balancing figure and create a custom account like “Uknown Income and Unknown Expense” until all accounts balance on 31st Dec 2024, then you start filling in 2025 records (i dont recommend this method).
About “Importing Bank Statements” i have seen in the forum some people mentioning that some records don’t get imported when doing automatic importing or syncing bank accounts. I only use manual entry so i dont have an experience to share or comment on the matter.
Do I still recommend you get an Accountant — In your case Yes! Until you have the accounting mess cleaned up. Then you can proceed yourself to manage the accounting records. Unless you are willing to do the hardcore work to go record by record, you Can’t achieve what you are saying you want to achieve. (For records before 2025)
I don’t know what else to say other than Good Luck!
@JFinis1 It is time that someone was “cruel to be kind”.
Although you have IT experience as far as accounting is concerned you are out of your depth. That is obvious from viewing the screenshot of your Summary Screen.
It is time you request someone you know with some accounting experience to help you.
