Skills / Reconciliation and close, Audit and assurance

Bank reconciliation → GL

What it does

A reconciliation is not a matching exercise. It is a proof that two independently maintained records of the same cash, which legitimately differ, differ only for reasons you can name. Matching is the mechanical part; the reconciliation is the explanation.

Transactions are matched through a six-pass cascade — check number, exact date, date tolerance, description tokens, many-to-one batched deposits, and one-to-many splits. Every unmatched item is then classified: deposit in transit, outstanding check, unrecorded bank item, or book error.

What it proves

Both sides converge on two adjusted balances that must be equal, and the unexplained difference line must read 0.00. Not close to zero. Zero. If it doesn't, the script exits non-zero and produces no clean workpaper.

It never plugs. A difference that cannot be explained stays visible as an unexplained difference and the reconciliation is reported as incomplete. A plugged reconciliation is how misappropriation survives twelve consecutive months of close — usually as a vaguely labelled reconciling item (Timing, Bank adj, Unidentified deposit) that never resolves in a later month. Any such item inherited from a prior period is treated as an open finding, not an accepted balance.

What you get

Six tabs:

  1. Reconciliation — the four-column form, with preparer and reviewer signature blocks. This is the workpaper.
  2. Reconciling Items — every item with its classification, age in days, expected resolution, and owner.
  3. Proposed Journal Entries — debit/credit ready to post for unrecorded bank items and book errors. Usually the most-used tab.
  4. Matched Detail — every matched pair with the rule that matched it and the day variance, so a reviewer can sample and re-perform.
  5. Aging — outstanding checks and deposits in transit bucketed 0–30 through 180+, with stale-check and unclaimed-property candidates flagged.
  6. Exceptions & Memo — anything a reviewer must see before signing.

Aging is where a reconciliation stops being clerical. Items over 90 days get investigated; items over six months are presumptively stale. The same amount appearing as a reconciling item in consecutive months is called out by name — that is almost never timing, it is a systemic posting error rolling forward unexamined.

Where it stops

It matches transactions and classifies what's left, but won't decide whether an item is a deposit in transit or an unidentified withdrawal.

Control observations — checks clearing out of sequence, transfers between company accounts appearing on only one side, the same person preparing the reconciliation and holding disbursement authority — are raised as matters for management, never as audit conclusions.

On unclaimed property it flags reportable candidates and tells you to confirm the dormancy period against the applicable state's current rules, rather than asserting one. Being wrong there creates real penalty exposure.