Reconcile Issued Checks with Cashed Checks

While bookkeeping, paying bills, and tracking expenses can be seen as tedious and time-consuming to a lot of people, they are tasks vital to good financial management for any new or growing business. Half of all small businesses fail within the first five years, and financial mismanagement is often involved. Comparing your record of business transactions to the transactions listed on your bank statements each month helps you keep cleaner records while also giving you an up-to-date, accurate snapshot of your cash flow and overall financial health. Reconciling disbursed checks with cashed checks in your bank statements is an important part of the process so that your financial records match your internal records without error or discrepancy.

Some common reasons your bank statement of cashed checks may not match your registry:

· An issued check was not recorded in your registry

· An issued check was inadvertently recorded twice

· Checks recorded are still in transit or have not yet been cashed

· The registry contains data entry mistakes, transposed numbers, misplaced decimals, or computation errors

· Checks written from one bank account are mistakenly recorded in the ledger for another

Reasons to reconcile your accounts after disbursing your checks:

Spot errors

The sooner you spot mistakes in your accounts, the sooner they can be fixed, and the less costly it will be to correct them. Frequently reconciling your issued checks with your cashed checks allows you to spot errors within a single statement period. If the error is yours—or if there are numerous ones—it may be time to assess your bookkeeping and bill-paying system to make the process more accountable and accurate going forward.

Prevent overdraft

Reduce the likelihood of accidentally writing too many checks on your account by keeping meticulous track of your checks: when they are written, as well as when they are cashed. Automating some or all of the bill-paying on a set schedule can help reduce the chances of drawing too much money at once.

Know your cash flow

The emergence of online account access and bookkeeping software products have made possible real-time knowledge of the financial picture. Staying up-to-date on how much cash is actually available in your account leads to better money management and more effective budgeting.

Prevent fraud

Businesses lose billions of dollars a year to fraudulent activity. Reduce opportunities for check fraud by tracing your issued checks to make sure they are cashed properly and timely. Adding an in-house approval process to the Accounts Payable helps to add transparency and accountability; using online check printing eliminates the need for you to store blank, ready-to-use checks around your office that can be misplaced or misappropriated without your knowledge.

Forecast

Make more accurate predictions for financial growth by keeping organized, accurate books. Whether you work with a remote bookkeeper or handle the books yourself, you are better prepared for future earning, spending, and budgeting when your accounts are organized and all disbursed checks accounted for.

Online check printing helps make reconciliation faster and more accurate

Having an automated, online check registry makes recording and analyzing check data a simpler process. Each Checkeeper account comes with an online check registry that automatically records and stores the details of every check created. Search the registry by any check field or any date range when you need to research payments, compare printed checks with cashed ones, and track expenses. Checkeeper offers customized check printing that enables users to:

·       Print checks from multiple linked checking accounts

·       Export the entire check history to print or download

·       Search for a specific check according to any check field—including the memo

·       Integrate check printing data with various accounting applications

·       Share records instantly with a bookkeeper and/or accountant