A bank reconciliation agrees the cash balance in your books to the bank statement for the same date. Start from each balance, adjust each side for the items the other side has recorded and it has not, and the two adjusted balances should match. Any difference left over is an error someone has to find.
The template has two parts. The first lays out the reconciliation, with round figures for a worked example. The second lists what a reviewer checks before signing.
How to use the template
- Download the CSV, replace the illustrative amounts with your own, and keep one reconciliation per bank account per month.
- Adjust the bank side for items the bank has not yet processed: deposits in transit and outstanding cheques.
- Adjust the book side for items the bank processed that you have not yet recorded: fees, interest, returned cheques and direct receipts.
- Correct errors on the side that made them, and book the book-side adjustments as journal entries.
- Attach the statement and support for each reconciling item, then sign.
The bank reconciliation template
| Section | Line | Illustrative amount | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank side | Balance per bank statement | 50,000 | Bank statement at period end |
| Bank side | Add: deposits in transit | 4,000 | Deposit slips and the bank statement of the next period |
| Bank side | Less: outstanding cheques | (6,500) | Cheque register, listed by cheque number |
| Bank side | Add or less: bank errors | 0 | Bank correspondence |
| Bank side | Adjusted bank balance | 47,500 | |
| Book side | Balance per general ledger | 48,000 | Trial balance cash account |
| Book side | Add: interest and receipts the bank recorded | 300 | Bank statement |
| Book side | Less: bank fees | (100) | Bank statement |
| Book side | Less: returned (NSF) cheques | (1,200) | Bank advice |
| Book side | Add or less: book errors | 500 | Correcting entry for a cheque recorded at 1,500 that cleared at 1,000 |
| Book side | Adjusted book balance | 47,500 | |
| Check | Difference between adjusted balances | 0 | Must be zero before sign-off |
Download the template (CSV) Download the template (Excel)
The figures are an illustration, not a client example. In it, the book side needs four journal entries: interest, the fee, the returned cheque and the correction of the cheque recorded at the wrong amount.
Review steps before sign-off
| Step | What the reviewer checks | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The bank balance agrees to the statement and the book balance agrees to the trial balance | Reviewer |
| 2 | Each deposit in transit cleared the bank in the first days of the next period | Reviewer |
| 3 | Outstanding cheques are listed by number; cheques older than your policy limit are investigated | Preparer, then reviewer |
| 4 | Each book-side adjustment has a journal entry, approved by someone other than the preparer | Approver |
| 5 | No unexplained difference is carried forward as a plug or parked in suspense | Reviewer |
| 6 | Unusual items, such as large round transfers or new payees, have support | Reviewer |
| 7 | The preparer and the reviewer are different people, and both sign and date the reconciliation | Preparer and reviewer |
Where an agent helps
Rever's Matcher reconciles bank, card and processor activity to the books as transactions land, so the monthly template becomes a review of open items. Investigator traces each unexplained difference to its cause, Journal prepares the correcting entries for your approval, and Evidence keeps the statement lines and postings linked to the workpaper, which downloads to Excel. See bank reconciliation on rever.ai, bank reconciliation and the AP run for controllers and NetSuite bank reconciliation.