Free tool
A bank reconciliation template that does the arithmetic for you.
Most reconciliation templates are a spreadsheet you fill in and total yourself. Enter the bank and book balances here, list what each side has not seen, and the two columns meet as you type.
How the worksheet reconciles
The standard two-column bank reconciliation, done as you type.
The bank side
The statement's ending balance, plus deposits your books have and the bank has not credited yet, less checks and payments still outstanding, plus or minus any error the bank made. The result is what the bank will show once everything clears.
The book side
Your cash account's balance, plus interest the bank paid, less fees it charged and customer payments it returned, plus or minus errors in the books. These are the items only the statement knew about.
The difference, explained
When the adjusted balances do not meet, the size of the gap is a clue: divisible by 9 suggests swapped digits, half the difference points at an entry on the wrong side, and an exact match points at an item listed twice or left out.
Journal entries to post
Every book-side item is an entry someone has to record: bank fees debited to bank service charges, interest credited to interest income, returned payments back to receivables. They are listed with debits and credits.
Bank items need no entry
Deposits in transit and outstanding checks are timing, not errors. They clear on next month's statement, so they appear on the worksheet and nowhere else.
Save it with the month
Download the finished worksheet as a CSV, or print it, to keep with the month's workpapers. Nothing typed here is sent anywhere or stored.
Questions
- How do you do a bank reconciliation?
- Take the ending balance on the bank statement and add deposits in transit, then subtract outstanding checks. Take the cash balance in your books and add interest, then subtract bank fees and returned deposits. Correct any errors on the side they belong to. When the two adjusted balances are equal, the account is reconciled.
- What are deposits in transit and outstanding checks?
- A deposit in transit is money recorded in your books that the bank had not credited by the statement date, such as a deposit made on the last day. An outstanding check is a payment recorded in your books that had not cleared the bank. Both are timing differences and resolve on the next statement.
- Why won't my bank reconciliation balance?
- The usual causes are a transaction entered in only one record, an amount keyed with two digits swapped, an entry posted on the wrong side, or an item already included in a starting balance and listed again. The worksheet checks the difference against each of these patterns.
- Which adjustments need journal entries?
- Only book-side items: bank fees, interest, returned or NSF deposits, and corrections to errors in your books. Bank-side items are the bank catching up with you, so they need no entry.
- How do I find the items to list?
- Compare the statement with the cash account's register, ticking off transactions that appear in both. Whatever is left unticked goes on the worksheet. The Bank vs Ledger Matcher does that comparison from the two exports.
- Is anything I enter saved or sent?
- No. The worksheet runs in your browser. Download or print it before closing the tab if you want to keep it.
Related: finding the reconciling items automatically, checking a statement adds up, and bank reconciliation with Bankflow.
More free tools
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- Bank Reconciliation TemplateYou are here
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Statement PDFs
Import files
Reconcile from the statement PDF
Bankflow reads bank statement PDFs into transactions, checks them against the balances the statement prints, and exports them to QuickBooks or Xero ready to match.
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