Re-entering a transaction after deleting it is one of the most common causes of a reconciliation discrepancy, and QuickBooks Online has a built-in report that shows you exactly which transactions are causing it.
Why this happens
Your beginning balance for a reconciliation is supposed to match the ending balance from your last one. When a reconciled transaction from a past period gets edited, deleted, or re-entered, it changes that ending balance after the fact, which throws off the beginning balance the next time you reconcile.
If you deleted a transaction and manually re-entered it instead of just editing it, the original may still be sitting in your books alongside the new entry, effectively doubling it up. That's the most common way this kind of discrepancy shows up.
Step 1: Open the reconcile discrepancy report
This report lists every change affecting your beginning balance, along with what changed and who changed it.
- Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Reconcile.
- Select the account you're reconciling.
- When you see the alert that your beginning balance is off, select We can help you fix it.
Work through the report one line at a time. The What happened column tells you what changed and when, and Review in tray gives you the full details along with a suggested fix.
Step 2: Track down transactions the report doesn't catch
Deleted and re-entered transactions don't always show up cleanly in the discrepancy report, so if it comes back clear but your balance is still off, check two more places:
- Go to Settings, then Audit log, and filter to the account and period you're reconciling. This shows you any transactions that were deleted, which is exactly what you'll want to compare against anything you re-entered.
- Go to your Chart of accounts, select View register for the account, and filter by reconcile status. Look for any transaction marked R that's dated after your last completed reconciliation.
Comparing the deleted originals in the audit log against what you re-entered, and against your bank statement, will tell you pretty quickly whether you've got true duplicates, since you'll be able to see if the same amount and date show up twice.
Step 3: Fix what you find
Once you've confirmed a transaction is a duplicate, you have two ways to correct it:
- Mark it as reconciled directly in the account register.
- Reconcile the account again using the same ending date and ending balance as your last reconciliation. This second option also keeps a record of the fix on a reconciliation report, so it's worth doing if you want that paper trail.
If a duplicate was cleared by mistake, you can also remove it from the reconciliation by opening the register, finding the transaction, and clicking its R checkmark until it clears back to blank. Just keep in mind that doing this changes your beginning balance again, so you'll need to reconcile that account once more afterward.
Step 4: Confirm your balance is fixed
When everything's corrected, the discrepancy report should show a total difference of $0.00, and that total should match the amount your beginning balance was originally off by. Once that lines up, you're clear to reconcile as usual going forward.
Resources:
Fix beginning balance issues when reconciling in QuickBooks Online
Undo or remove transactions from reconciliations in QuickBooks Online
Have questions about a specific transaction in your report? Drop the details below and we'll help you work through it.
