The Easiest Way to Do a Bank Reconciliation
- 1). Use your bank records to adjust your balance. Add any interest earned to your records that you have not yet added, which the bank would have added. Subtract bank service charges, insufficient funds fees and check printing charges. This encompasses any charges a bank will make that you have not yet taken out of the balance in your records. Add or subtract any errors you may have made when keeping your records. Whether you add or subtract will depend on if the error adds money to the account or subtracts money from the account.
- 2). Use the bank records and adjust the bank's balance. Start by adding in any deposits in transit. Deposits in transit are deposits you made that are in your records but that the bank has yet to record and process. Subtract any outstanding checks. Outstanding checks are checks you wrote that are subtracted from your balance but that the bank has not subtracted because the checks have not yet been cashed. Add or subtract any banking errors. Whether you add or subtract will depend on if the error adds money to the account or subtracts money from the account.
- 3). Compare the result of your bank record adjustments to the bank record adjustments from the bank's books. These numbers should now be equal.