Bank Reconciliation and a Real Month-End
Every account matched to the cent, every control account checked against what was actually filed, and the month closed on the 10th. Not “mostly reconciled” with a difference nobody can explain.
The Difference Between a Tidy File and a Reconciled One
There is a large difference, and it only shows up when someone needs to rely on the numbers. Here is the standard we work to.
Trading account, savings, every credit card, loans, hire purchase, clearing accounts, PayPal, Stripe and any POS settlement account. A single unreconciled card is enough to make the profit figure wrong.
Ticking off a bank feed against a bank feed proves nothing. We reconcile to the closing balance on the actual statement, every month, which is the only version that counts.
Unidentified items go on the query list and get resolved. They do not go into a holding account to be sorted out later, because later never arrives and the balance compounds.
What the ledger says you owe in GST should equal what was actually reported. Where it does not, we find out why before the quarter closes rather than at year end.
Wages, PAYG withheld and super payable reconciled to what was filed and paid. This is the most commonly skipped step in Australian small business bookkeeping.
The receivables total on the balance sheet matches the aged debtors report. Obvious, frequently untrue, and the first thing a lender or a buyer checks.
When a month is signed off, the period is locked so nothing changes retrospectively. A number you reported in March still says the same thing in November.
Ten Days, Same Order, Every Month
Bookkeeping that arrives whenever it is finished is not a service you can plan around. Ours runs to a timetable and you know where it is at any point.
Everything in
Feeds pulled, receipts collected, supplier bills entered, sales data imported from your POS or platform.
Coded and queried
Every line coded with the correct GST treatment. Anything ambiguous goes on one consolidated query list, sent to you in a single email.
Reconciled and checked
All accounts matched to statements, control accounts verified against filings, debtors and creditors agreed to their ledgers.
Reviewed by a second pair of eyes
Someone other than the person who did the work looks over the month for anything that does not sit right before it goes out.
Closed, locked and delivered
The period is locked, the pack lands in your inbox, and if anything looked unusual we say so in writing rather than leaving you to spot it.
Why the 10th and not the 5th. Because supplier invoices for the last week of the month arrive in the first week of the next one. Closing on the 5th would mean closing on incomplete data and then quietly amending it, which is worse than waiting five days for the truth.
Before You Ask
Three quick checks you can do yourself. Open the balance sheet and look for a suspense, unallocated or holding account with a balance in it. Compare the receivables total on the balance sheet to the aged debtors report. Then check the closing balance of every bank and card account against the statement for the same date. If all three come out clean, your file is genuinely reconciled.
We list them, quantify them, and tell you which ones actually need fixing. Not every historical error is worth correcting, because a $40 miscoding from three years ago costs more to fix than it is worth. Where something affects a lodged BAS or a prior-year tax return, we flag it for your accountant or BAS agent to decide, because amending a lodgement is their call and not ours.
Yes, and these are where most files fall apart. A single platform payout is a net figure covering gross sales, refunds, chargebacks and fees. Coding the net amount to sales overstates nothing and understates everything: your revenue, your fees and your GST are all wrong. We unpick each payout properly. See retail and e-commerce for the detail.
Every month, by the 10th, included in the monthly fee. Year-end is simply the twelfth close plus a handover pack for your accountant. Bookkeeping that only produces reports once a year is bookkeeping done for the ATO rather than for you.
Get Your File Reconciled and Kept That Way
We will run the three checks above on your file and send you the answer in writing, free and yours to keep. If you want us to take it on, reconciliation is included from $25 a week.