Reconciliation

Reconciling answers one question: does what LawnLedger thinks you have match what the bank says you have? If it does, your numbers are trustworthy. If it doesn’t, something is missing or double-counted, and it’s much cheaper to find now than at tax time.

Growth and up. Requires banking.manage.

Before you start

Have the bank statement for the period you’re reconciling - the paper one or the PDF. You need its closing balance and its closing date.

Reconcile a month

Open reconciliation

Books → Banking, choose the account, then Reconcile.

Enter the statement’s ending balance and date

Type them exactly as the statement shows. This is the target you’re reconciling to.

Tick off what cleared

Check each transaction that appears on the statement. As you go, the difference at the bottom moves toward zero.

Finish when the difference is zero

If it’s zero, click Finish. The period is locked as reconciled and those transactions won’t move.

The reconciliation report

Every finished session has a printable record - the document an accountant or a lender asks for by name. On the Reconcile tab, a completed session’s row carries PDF and CSV buttons (the reports.export permission, the same one that unlocks the ledger exports and the year-end package).

The report prints:

Statement summary - beginning balance, cleared deposits and credits, cleared checks and payments, ending balance, and the difference (zero on a finished session, by construction).
Cleared deposits and credits and cleared checks and payments - every line you ticked, dated.
Uncleared as of the statement date - everything dated on or before the statement that was not on it: outstanding checks, deposits in transit, pending activity. Excluded rows are left out of both lists, the same way the session’s own arithmetic treats them.
Register balance - statement ending + uncleared, against the linked ledger account’s balance in the books through the statement day. The two agree when the books and the bank tell the same story; a difference is the number to chase.

The close checklist’s Statements reconciled row reads these sessions: an account is covered for a period when a completed session’s statement date is on or after the period’s last day. That row reports and never holds up the lock.

When it doesn’t come to zero

Work through it in this order - it’s roughly most-likely to least:

A transaction in the bank that isn’t in LawnLedger. Usually a fee, an interest charge, or a transfer. Add it.
A transaction in LawnLedger that isn’t in the bank. A check that hasn’t cleared is fine and normal - leave it unticked. One that will never clear should be voided.
A wrong amount. Compare the few transactions closest to the difference. A transposed figure ($540 vs $450) shows up as a difference of 90, which is divisible by 9 - a classic tell.
Something entered twice. Check for a duplicate near the difference amount.

Don’t force it. Creating an adjusting entry to make the difference disappear hides the real problem and moves it into next month, where it’s harder to find.

Tips

Reconcile in date order. Reconciling March before February will make both harder.
A reconciled period is a checkpoint. Once it balances, you never have to re-examine those transactions.