Thunder Munchkin Software, LLC
BeMyCheckbook 1.3 User's Guide
Balancing Your Checkbook
Thunder Munchkin Software, LLC
BeMyCheckbook 1.3 User's Guide
BeMyCheckbook includes the ability for the user to reconcile (or balance) the computerized register against a bank statement. To access this feature the user may either use the "Balance Account..." text button from within the account's register or select an account from the Accounts Manager list and select "Reconcile Account" from the "Account" menu. We will be using the checking account from the sample accounts included with the program ("BMC_Sample_Accounts" in the installation directory). Upon entering the balancing section the user will encounter a dialog that asks for the information necessary to begin balancing the account:
The statement date, starting, and ending balance should all come from the bank statement. Once this information has been entered the main balancing screen will appear:
The right-hand side looks similar to the register, however has very different functionality. A single-click on an item will mark the transaction as reconciled. A capital "R" will appear in the column between the Payee and Withdrawal columns. The user may un-mark an item by clicking on it again:
When an item is marked as reconciled several things happen. First, as mentioned the transaction item on the list obtains an "R" in the reconciliation column. Second, the "Currently Reconciled" section in the sidebar adds that transaction to the appropriate column. Third, the "Reconciled" amount is changed accordingly. The information provided in the sidebar is for the user to see how close the balancing process is to being completed.
If an item is found which has the wrong amount, the user may right-click on the item and choose to edit it. This will bring up the following screen:
This area allows the user to only edit the amount of the transaction, as it is important to maintain account integrity as well as the balancing information when in this area. When all of the items on the statement have been marked as reconciled, the "Difference" should be zero. This would indicate that the account has been correctly reconciled. Should the amount not equal zero, the user may be missing transactions, have incorrectly marked them off in the right hand column, or have an error in an amount. Once the amount is zero click on the "Finish" text button in the sidebar. The transactions will appear in the register with an "R" in the reconciliation column indicating that they have already been reconciled. Caution should be exerted when editing reconciled transactions, as this could cause the next balancing attempt to be hard to manage. In addition, if a transaction is manually marked as reconciled it will not appear in the balancing section for that account.