Reconciliation Confusion / Problems?

1

Hi Fellow Manager Fans,

As always, I should apologise to you all in advance for my long winded post !

I’ve been using Manager for several years now and have always found it great (except for a few errors and problems that I’ve managed to create for myself).

I’m running Manager using the Cash “System” and generally, I do my invoices etc and normally on a weekly basis I print out a bank statement then go through and enter payments and receipts etc.

This system has worked well for me and for the most part, my Manager totals agree with my bank statements.

There have been a few occasions where my old age or senility become involved and incorrect dates may be entered or similar mishaps occur but generally, after making my hair somewhat greyer, I manage to sort the issues out.

In the last week or so I had a problem where the bank and Manager didn’t agree so I went digging and finally managed to track the problem down and it turned out that I had cloned an old transaction but neglected to change the date.

I did try using the reconciliation feature and didn’t seem to be getting anywhere so I pulled out my bank statements and by checking monthly balances, I tracked the problem down.

I’ve now found that opening the reconciliation tab shows several different dates and discrepancy amounts even though, to me, everything seems to balance OK.

I would appreciate it greatly, if anyone could suggest what I could have done (or am still doing wrong) to cause issues such as these.

I will also add that I’ve had virtually no previous experience in accounting and am completely self taught but thankfully, I have been getting by fairly well for six or so years.

Stay Safe Everyone !!

Cheers

Paul

1 Like
2

Sorry, but it is impossible to diagnose your problem based on what you have written. Here are some things to consider:

  • You did not indicate whether you have been doing reconciliations in the past, or this is the first one. But if you edited a previous transaction, all subsequent reconciliations will be invalid. You will have to redo them.
  • All transactions in Manager are considered “end of day.” The program cannot distinguish which was entered first if they are created the same date.
  • Be sure you are dealing properly with pending and cleared status and that clearance dates are entered and match the dates the transactions showed up in your bank statement. Manager treats transactions marked only as cleared differently from those marked cleared with a date.
  • Manager does not know as much as you might think about your bank transactions and the running balance. Any past reconciliations fix certain things in the database. Delete them, however, and the program’s knowledge of your bank account history (as opposed to what it thinks is your history) vanishes.
  • A reconciliation on one date reconciles everything up to that date. In other words, if Manager’s reported bank balance today matches your bank statement and you have no other reconciliations, you are fully reconciled for all time.
  • Bank reconciliations are just reports. They can be deleted and recreated for the past, if you have any use for old ones. So you need not fear losing information by deleting or adjusting them.
  • It’s virtually impossible to diagnose reconciliation problems remotely, as the information displayed and questions asked vary based on what is there, how you answer, in what order, etc. So you just have to slog through the process. It can be very frustrating.
3

If your bank provides “data downloads” then you may find it easier to use the feature “Import Bank Statements”. This way, instead of printing the statement and manually entering the data, the transactions can be “automatically” entered and you just need to complete the account allocation if that hasn’t been done via a “bank rule”.

Read these Guides:
Import Bank Statements https://www.manager.io/guides/9240
Create Bank Rules https://www.manager.io/guides/9243

4

I think I understand what you’re trying to say, but as tut says, you need to provide a little more information or some screen shots, taking out anything sensitive, but hopefully leaving enough that we can get the gist of it to help you.

But by the sounds of it, yes, you have a duplicate entry or two.

The way reconciliations work, if you have cloned an old receipt/payments amount then only the reconciliation where the error occurs will be out. The rest will appear to balance as far as the reconciliations are concerned because the change in cash-in/cash-out has stayed the same, even though the balances may be out. (that’s if my current perception of reconciliations is still correct).

meaning: if you have 6 months where everything balances correctly, but then you duplicate something in the second month and forget to change the date, this will make the 2nd month’s reconciliation “wrong”. The following 4 months will be correct but the balances will show incorrectly because of the duplicated error back in month 2. Even though the cash balances will appear incorrect in manager, the reconciliation for months 3-6 are correct because the net change in those accounts in those months is correct.

So if you have just some reconciliations that are incorrect, then it is only in those period you need to find the errors. It doesn’t hurt to have a 1, 2, 10 or 30 reconciliations in any month. Create more if you need and you will nut down to the period that’s wrong.

Perhaps if you had duplicated one payment/receipt, maybe you have duplicated others. Perhaps you have duplicated it once, then not seen it on the new date you expected it (because you forgot to change the date, but didn’t realise that, and so) you’ve created it again.

All speculation, but as I mentioned, more reconciliation period can’t hurt you, only make it clearer for you to find the problem.

good luck! I hate reconciliations! :stuck_out_tongue:

5

I would suggest that you move to importing the bank statements into Manager instead of doing manual reconciliation. I used to do it manually because I thought it was going to be complicated to do bank imports and bank rules because I never used it before. I just got this idea that it was an advanced feature.

It is actually far easier for everyone to import the bank statements than to do manual reconciliations. I have saved so much time, everything is accurate and I no longer have to worry about order of items in Manager and bank account statements etc.