A reconciled transaction reappears as unreconciled because something changed on it after your last completed reconciliation, most often an edit, a deletion, or a bank feed transaction that got sent back to pending. QuickBooks Online treats this as a beginning balance discrepancy, and it won't let you continue a new reconciliation until the difference is found and fixed. The fastest way to find the exact cause is the Reconcile Discrepancy Report.
What causes a reconciled transaction to show up again as unreconciled?
The most common causes of a beginning balance discrepancy are:
- An incorrect opening balance entered when the account was first created in QuickBooks.
- A reconciled transaction that was edited, deleted, voided, moved, or unreconciled. Any of these changes the ending balance from your last reconciliation, which becomes the beginning balance for your next one.
- A categorized bank feed transaction that was undone and sent back to pending.
- A transaction dated before your last reconciliation's ending date that got reconciled manually, outside your usual reconciliation flow.
Any one of these will make your beginning balance stop matching your bank statement, which is why the transaction keeps showing up as available to select again.
How do I find out exactly what changed?
- Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions, and confirm every transaction for the period is matched, categorized, posted, or excluded.
- Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Reconcile, and select the account you're working on.
- If your beginning balance is off, you'll see an alert that reads "Your account isn't ready to reconcile yet. Your beginning balance is off by...". Select "We can help you fix it" to open the Reconcile Discrepancy Report.
- Work through the report one line at a time. The "What happened" column shows what changed, when, and who made the change. Select "Review in tray" for details, or the dropdown next to it, then "View History," for a transaction's full history.
How do I fix a discrepancy once I've found it?
Follow the suggested fix in the tray for each item, or make your own correction based on your bank records. Only correct changes that were genuinely made in error, since some edits are intentional. If a fix calls for reconciling a transaction again, you have two options: mark it “R” directly in the account register, or reconcile the account again using the same ending date and ending balance as your last reconciliation. Both fix the beginning balance, but only reconciling again leaves a reconciliation report behind for that period.
To manually change a transaction's status yourself:
- Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Chart of accounts, and select View register for the account.
- Find the transaction. Reconciled transactions show an “R” in the checkmark column.
- Select the transaction to expand it, then select the “R” box repeatedly. It cycles from “R” (reconciled) to “C” (cleared) to blank (uncleared).
- Select Save, then reconcile the account again correctly.
What if the discrepancy report is clear but my balance is still off?
Two kinds of changes won't show up on the Discrepancy Report, so check both directly:
- Deleted or voided transactions. Go to Settings, then Audit log. Filter to the account and the period since your last completed reconciliation, and look for anything deleted or voided.
- Transactions reconciled outside a normal reconciliation. Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Chart of accounts, and select View register for the account. Filter by Reconcile status, and look for anything marked “R” dated after your last completed reconciliation.
Once the Total discrepancy difference on the report shows $0.00 and matches the amount you were originally off by, your beginning balance is fixed and you can reconcile normally going forward.
Is there a way to stop re-matching and re-marking the same transaction every month?
Yes, although it comes down to fixing the underlying discrepancy instead of the symptom. Excluding a transaction, getting an out-of-balance warning, then re-matching it and manually clicking it back to “R” in the register only restores the old reconciliation temporarily. It doesn't address whatever caused the transaction to fall out of reconciled status in the first place, so it can keep resurfacing. Working through the Reconcile Discrepancy Report (or the Audit log, if a transaction was deleted or voided) finds that root cause, and once it's corrected, the transaction should stay reconciled without needing to be touched again each month.
If you've worked through all of this and your balance still doesn't match, or you're not sure whether a change was intentional, check with your accountant to review the account with you before anything is adjusted.
Resources:
Fix beginning balance issues when reconciling in QuickBooks Online: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/statement-reconciliation/fix-issues-accounts-reconciled-past-quickbooks/L8lx6PQQ5_US_en_US
Undo or remove transactions from reconciliations in QuickBooks Online: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/accounting-bookkeeping/undo-remove-transactions-reconciliations-online/L6ERlEXxn_US_en_US
