Reconciling bank accounts

For each bank account or fund that the school holds, the accounting information in Arbor Finance must be reconciled with the appropriate monthly bank statements or transaction lists. This reconciliation can be quickly completed on-screen.

You can access the Reconciliation screen from the Transactions menu by choosing Bank accounts.

Note also the instructions for unreconciling bank accounts.

At any point in the process, you can print off a reconciliation report, with any grouping or sorting options applied, by clicking the Print icon

 

To set up the reconciliation

1. From the Transactions menu choose Bank processing to display the Bank processing screen, with the Reconciliation tab selected by default.

2. From the Bank account drop-down list, select the bank account or fund you want to reconcile.

   All transactions for this account that have not yet been reconciled are listed below.

   3. By default today's Date is displayed. You can change this to another date if you want, e.g. the date of a bank statement. Enter a short Reference for this reconciliation. 

      You might use a bank statement sheet number as the reference, or the reference number on an LA transaction list.

      (If desired you can use this reference for reconciling multiple transactions in a single Update action.)
       

To group the transactions

After you have set up the reconciliation, if you have many transactions it's a good idea to group them, in a way that makes them easy to find and reconcile against your bank statement or transaction list. By default the transactions are ungrouped.

1. On the Bank accounts Reconciliation screen, click the Group by  icon.
   A Group by settings pop-up is displayed, allowing you to choose groupings at up to 3 levels (by default the transactions are not grouped).

2. From the First group by drop-down list, choose the primary way to group the transactions.

   It is often convenient to first group by Reference. 

3. If required, choose a secondary grouping from the then by drop-down list.

4. If required, choose a third grouping from the finally by drop-down list.

5. If you want to Allow mixed transaction types (i.e. Income and Expenditure grouped together), tick the box.

6. By default gross amounts are displayed in the transaction list. If you want to Show nett values, tick the box.

7. When you have finished, click Save. 

If you want to store these settings as the default for this bank account, click Yes; otherwise click No.

To sort the displayed transactions

After you have grouped the transactions (if required), you may want to sort the transactions to make them easy to find and reconcile against your bank statement or transaction list. By default the transactions are listed by date.

1. On the Bank accounts Reconciliation screen, click the Sort  icon. 
   A Sort by pop-up is displayed.

2. Select the required sorting option.

3. Click Save. 

To reconcile the transactions

1. On the Bank accounts Reconciliation screen, locate a line (group or single transaction) that you want to reconcile against your bank statement or transactions list.

   To find it you may need to scroll through the list, or use grouping or sorting as described above.

2. Under Transaction groups, select the line you want to reconcile.

   Under Group details, details of the selected entry are listed. 

3. Check the information against your bank statement or transactions list. To mark it as reconciled, set the Reconcile toggle switch for this line to Yes. 

4. Repeat steps 2-3 to mark additional lines for reconciliation.

If desired you can mark all the lines in a single action (after checking them!), by ticking the Reconcile heading box. 

5. When you have finished marking all grouped or single transactions that should be reconciled using the current Reference and Date, click Update.

6. Check the information in the Reconciliation pop-up window. To confirm, click Update. 
(If you want to return to the previous screen without updating, click Cancel.)
The screen is refreshed to remove the reconciled items and update the Reconciled Total value.

At the bottom of the Transaction groups list, the Reconciled Total value shows the total amount of the transactions that have been reconciled so far. After reconciliation this total should match the closing balance on the bank statement. You can also view the projected reconciliation total, by clicking the Reconciled Total icon to display a pop-up window:

At any time you can view all the bank account balances, by clicking the green £ side tab at the right.

If you see unexpected duplicate transactions in reconciliations, please reload the page. Doing so will determine if the duplicate is a screen issue which should be corrected when the page is reloaded.