The Bank Reconciliation module for Sage 100 ERP gives you insights behind the numbers to better manage and direct cashflow, helping you to view and forecast cashflow activities with registers, reports, and analyses. Learn helpful tips and tricks in this brief Sage 100cloud tutorial by SWK SVP of STAT, Merilyn Van Zwieten:
Sage 100 – Bank Reconciliation Tips & Tricks
Welcome to SWK’s video series on Sage 100.
This video will provide you tips on the Bank Reconciliation Module. I personally like this module a lot, but there are some circumstances you need to consider for a successful Reconciliation.
The very first task is to make sure your General Ledger – Daily Transaction Register is empty. It’s no fun trying to reconcile if there are unposted transactions. Next, we’ll want to confirm in Bank Rec. Bank Code Maintenance – this current balance here equals today’s balance in your General Ledger. Once we actually print out the reconciliation report, we want this to be able to calculate the Book Balance as of our closing date of the period, which would probably be at least several days prior to today. Once we’ve confirmed that our Transaction Register is empty, our bank code equals, then I want to give you a few rules that I follow for successful and easy reconciliations.
I make sure that I record all of my cash receipts in Cash Receipt Entry, rather than going into Bank Rec. or doing a journal entry. You’ll see here, I have a thousand dollar transaction that’s been created and you’ll also note that my Customer Number is “cash.” That’s a set aside Customer Number that allows you then to post, rather than to an invoice but directly to a General Ledger account number. Once I update this, it will update both the Bank Rec. module and my Cash Balance in General Ledger.
Another rule that I follow is that for any type of electronic payment I use Manual Check Entry. I think that this is the most convenient. What I do is I use the Check Type Wire Transfer. Once I put this in, I can come to the Lines tab and, over here, you can see how I have “CKW” as my Invoice Number. That’s because I had used this little icon over here to go directly to a General Ledger account, rather than entering in an invoice. So what is this handy for? Well I like to use it for loan payments that are perhaps taken directly out of my bank account or insurance payments. I, quite frankly, even like to use them for bank fees, so that I can keep track of what’s going on with my bank, in relation to my fees or even, for that matter, for credit card fees. So, there is another way of recording credit card fees, but I really do feel that this is the easiest.
Also, if you’re going to do a bank transfer, I prefer recording those, instead of by a journal entry. I like doing that with a transaction journal. I have one set up here that will do a transfer between my Operating to my Payroll account. I have formatted this so that it goes from Bank Code “D” to Bank Code “B,” which is my payroll. Coming onto the Lines you could see that I have a place that I can enter my transfer amount and once I update this, it will be reflected in both the bank accounts in my General Ledger and both bank accounts in my Bank Reconciliation module. Let me add that Transfer Number and let’s accept this and then we’re going to go over to the Bank Reconciliation module. When I am in Reconcile Bank, you will see that there is an option to add a check. So, let’s just add check number 111. We’ll just say that this is “miscellaneous” and “miscellaneous payment” and we’ll put in “$100.” It is not cleared, but I am going to select it for General Ledger posting. I will just put it to this other receivable account. I won’t have any comments. I can put a Transfer Number if I need to. Then I’m going to say “okay.” Now that is not sitting out there in General Ledger yet. I am going to have to run this Transaction Register for this to be posted to General Ledger. So, let’s take a look at our register. Here we go. Here’s our information. Let’s exit out of this and update this and then we’re going to print the Daily Transaction Register. Here’s my journal entry. So, I’ve taken care of it in both places and with the techniques that I have used, I am only recording a cash transaction once. I’m not going into General Ledger creating a journal entry and then manually adding it to the Bank Rec. module. By using the ability here, I could come in and come down to the bottom over here and do this and add it over here. I prefer to do it where I do it once and then I’m done.
So, once we have recorded everything and we go then to comparing our transactions to our bank statement, you could see here how I have cleared all of my transactions. That it puts a clear date here. Now, actually, I’m perhaps a little lazy on this. I end up putting the last day of the month, but I have a lot of clients that like to put the actual date of clearing the checks. And when you’re looking for a problem in your reconciliation, sometimes that’s pretty handy to have this in the order that it has been cleared. Now, if I was looking for something and I wanted to compare what I have cleared, to what the bank has showing clear, what I’ll end up doing is I will just come here. Do a little filtering of the columns, if you will, and do a “Check Number.” Now I have changed what this looks like and you can see that all of my “Uncleared” is at the top. My “Cleared” is at the bottom and now it is in check number order. I think a handy little thing is to right click “Export this to Excel” and this will go perfectly to Excel. Then I can run a total of all of my cleared checks and I could compare that to the summary total that my bank statement has. It makes it a little easier to find. Am I off on my deposits? Am I off on my checks? That way I’m not having to do extra checking. Let’s exit out of here. I won’t save that. And let’s come back to this. And let’s look at a few other tips that might be helpful.
First, you have some icons here that I think can be very nice. If I click on this, I can enter a range of checks to be cleared. Clicking on this can reset your rows, in case you want to undo the last transaction that you’ve done. Here’s something where I can look for a check number. This can be handy if my check number list is very long. Sometimes it’s easier to look for it this way. Here is what we’ve already talked about. This is allows me to resort my
columns. And if I come over to the Deposit side and click on a line, I also will see the Comment Text. Now, once you’re Out Of Balance is zero, it’s time to run your report. A couple tips on running your report. You will want to enter your Bank Code and you will want to add the Ending Date of your period. When I preview this and let’s go to the end of the report. We’re going to see that it has a Calculated Book Balance. This Calculated Book Balance should agree with my with my General Ledger. Once it does, when I exit out, it is now going to ask me if I want to remove the cleared documents from my Bank Reconciliation module. Clicking “Yes” will clear that out and then you’re ready for your next month’s reconciliation.
I hope this helps you get more out of your Sage 100 and also encourages you to use the Bank Reconciliation module. I think you’ll like it.
Thanks for watching our video!
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