Bank reconciliation for your firm

Bank reconciliation in Practice Management is for reconciling your firm’s own bank accounts — the accounts your practice uses to receive client payments and pay firm expenses. This is distinct from reconciling a client’s bank account, which is done inside that client’s Books module.

A complete reconciliation confirms that every transaction shown in Kuberan AI matches your bank statement, and that the closing balance in the system matches the statement balance. It is a critical control that catches errors, duplicate entries, and unrecorded transactions.

Before you begin

To reconcile a bank account, you need:

• The bank statement for the period you are reconciling (PDF or paper)
• The statement’s closing date and closing balance
• All transactions for the period already recorded in Kuberan AI (payments received, expenses paid, transfers)

If you have been recording transactions as you go, most transactions will already be in the system. If not, enter any missing transactions in Practice > Banking before starting the reconciliation.

Reconcile monthly, not annually

Leaving bank reconciliation until year-end makes it very difficult to identify and fix errors. Monthly reconciliations catch problems when the details are fresh and bank statements are still accessible. Build it into your month-end close routine.

Starting a reconciliation

1. Navigate to Practice > Reconciliation

   In the left sidebar, click Practice, then click Reconciliation. Open Reconciliation

   This screen shows a list of your firm’s bank accounts and the status of their most recent reconciliation.

2. Select the bank account

   Click on the bank account you want to reconcile. If you have multiple firm accounts (chequing, savings, credit card), reconcile each one separately.

3. Click Start Reconciliation

   Click the Start Reconciliation (or Reconcile if a previous reconciliation exists and you are continuing a new period). A setup panel appears.

4. Enter the statement details

   Fill in:

   • Statement closing date — the last day of the statement period (e.g. March 31, 2025)
   • Statement closing balance — the ending balance shown on your bank statement (enter exactly as shown, positive for a deposit account, negative for a credit card balance owing)

   Click Start to enter the reconciliation screen.

   

   Enter the statement closing date and closing balance exactly as they appear on your bank statement.

The reconciliation screen

The reconciliation screen has three panels:

Left panel — Summary:

• Opening balance (from the previous reconciliation’s closing balance)
• Total cleared deposits
• Total cleared payments
• Calculated book balance
• Statement closing balance
• Difference — this must reach $0.00 before you can finalise

Centre panel — Transactions to clear: All transactions in Kuberan AI for this account within the statement period, listed in date order. Each row has a checkbox on the right.

Right panel — Statement (optional): If you upload a PDF or CSV of the bank statement, Kuberan AI can suggest matches automatically.

Matching transactions

1. Compare your statement to the transaction list

   Work through the bank statement line by line. For each transaction on the statement, find the matching entry in Kuberan AI and click the checkbox to clear it.

   As you clear transactions, the Difference figure in the summary panel updates in real time.

2. Handle transactions on the statement not in Kuberan AI

   If you see a transaction on the bank statement that is not in Kuberan AI (e.g. a bank service fee that was not recorded), click Add missing transaction and record it now. It will be cleared automatically once saved.

   Common transactions that get missed:

   • Monthly bank service charges
   • NSF (non-sufficient funds) fees
   • Interest earned on savings accounts
   • Automatic loan payments
   • Pre-authorised debits (software subscriptions, insurance premiums)

3. Handle transactions in Kuberan AI not on the statement

   If you see a transaction in Kuberan AI that is not on the statement, do not check it off. There are a few possible explanations:

   • Timing difference — a cheque was issued on March 29 but the payee has not deposited it yet. Leave it unchecked; it will clear in next month’s reconciliation.
   • Wrong date — the transaction was recorded with the wrong date and appears on a different statement period. Click to edit the date.
   • Duplicate entry — the transaction was entered twice. Delete the duplicate.
   • Wrong account — the transaction was posted to this account but belongs to a different account. Edit the transaction to correct the account.

4. Work toward a zero difference

   Continue clearing transactions until the Difference reads $0.00. A zero difference means every transaction on the statement is accounted for in Kuberan AI and the balances match perfectly.

   

   When the Difference reaches $0.00, the Finalise Reconciliation button becomes active.

Handling discrepancies

If you cannot reach a zero difference, work through these diagnostic steps:

1. Check the opening balance — If a previous reconciliation was adjusted after the fact, the opening balance may be off. Compare the opening balance on screen to the closing balance from your previous bank statement.
2. Look for transposed numbers — A discrepancy exactly equal to a transaction amount often means that transaction is entered with a reversed sign (posted as a deposit instead of a payment, or vice versa).
3. Check for duplicate transactions — Use the Practice > Banking transaction list, sorted by amount, to find transactions that appear more than once.
4. Look for the difference in a specific date range — Narrow the transaction list to a one-week window and check whether the discrepancy falls within that period.
5. Compare totals by type — If your total cleared deposits match the statement but total cleared payments do not, the error is in the payments side and vice versa.

Document your search

If you genuinely cannot find the discrepancy, add a note in the reconciliation description field before finalising. This flags it for future investigation and prevents the error from silently compounding in subsequent months.

Finalising the reconciliation

Once the Difference is $0.00:

1. Click Finalise Reconciliation

   This button is only active when the difference is zero. Click it.

2. Confirm

   A confirmation dialog shows the period, account, and closing balance. Click Confirm to lock the reconciliation.

3. Print or export the reconciliation report (optional)

   Click Download PDF to save a reconciliation report for your working papers. This report lists all cleared transactions, the opening and closing balances, and the preparer’s name. Keep this for your engagement documentation if you are preparing the firm’s own financial statements.

The closing balance of the finalised reconciliation automatically becomes the opening balance for the next period.

Undoing a reconciliation

A finalised reconciliation is locked for everyday editing, but it is not permanent — if you discover an error in a period you have already closed (a misposted transaction, a wrong statement balance, a transaction that should not have been cleared), you can unreconcile it and redo the period.

1. Open the reconciliation

   From the Reconciliation screen, open the finalised reconciliation for the account and period you need to correct.

2. Click Unreconcile

   This reopens the period. Every transaction that was cleared in this reconciliation is released back to an unreconciled state and the reconciliation’s lock is lifted.

3. Make your corrections

   Fix the underlying transaction, adjust the statement balance, or re-clear the correct set of transactions, then finalise the reconciliation again.

Unreconciling preserves your work

Unreconciling only removes the reconciled state and the associated reconciliation journal entry/match for that period. It does not delete the transactions or wipe how they were coded — the account, vendor/customer, and tax assignments stay intact, so a released transaction returns as Categorized rather than uncategorised. You only need to re-clear it, not re-categorise it from scratch.

Because unreconciling a closed period can shift the opening balance of every later period, only undo a reconciliation when you genuinely need to correct it, and re-finalise the period (and any periods after it) once the fix is in.