Bank reconciliation
Match your bank statement against what's recorded, catch what's missing, and do it monthly so small differences never become a year-long hunt.
Reconciliation answers one question: does what we recorded match what the bank actually did?
Do it every month. A $40 difference found four weeks after it happened is a two-minute fix. Found eleven months later, it's an afternoon.
FinancesBank reconciliation.
How it works
Download your bank statement as CSV
Every Canadian bank offers this. Choose the period you're reconciling.
Paste the rows in
Copy from the file and paste into the reconciliation box.
Read the match
ManageStrata compares the bank rows against your recorded transactions and shows you three groups: matched, on the bank but not recorded, and recorded but not on the bank.
Deal with the unmatched
That list is the whole point of the exercise. See below.
It's a preview — nothing is saved
Reconciliation shows you the comparison. It doesn't write anything to your books. Whatever it reveals, you go and record or correct yourself. That's deliberate: an automatic reconciliation that quietly creates transactions would let a mistake propagate silently.
The comparison runs against your whole fund ledger, not a recent slice of it — a posting the page hadn't loaded would show up as "on the bank, not in ManageStrata", which is a fabricated discrepancy in the one tool whose job is finding real ones. For a very deep ledger that can't be walked in a single pass, the page says so above the results and tells you how much of it was loaded, rather than quietly matching against part of your books.
Reading the unmatched lists
On the bank, not in ManageStrata
Money moved and you haven't recorded it. Usually:
- an owner's e-transfer nobody entered → record the payment against their lot;
- a bill paid by automatic debit → record the expense;
- bank fees → record as an operating expense, and check they're what you expect;
- interest earned → record it against the fund that earned it, usually the reserve.
You can post these from here. Tick the lines that are genuinely missing from the books and record them in one go, against the fund — no re-keying somewhere else from a list you're holding in your head.
Recorded against the fund, never against a lot
A bank line tells you the corporation's cash changed; it does not tell you whose money it was. One lump deposit can be twenty owners' fees. So a reconciliation posts fund-level entries only — an owner's payment still gets recorded against their lot, where it can be seen on their ledger.
The whole posting is recorded as one batch, so a reconciliation posted against the wrong month is undone in a single step.
In ManageStrata, not on the bank
Recorded, but the money hasn't moved. Usually:
- a cheque not yet cashed — normal, and it should clear next month. If it's still outstanding after two or three months, chase it;
- a payment recorded on the wrong date — recorded in June, cleared in July;
- a payment that never actually cleared — an NSF cheque. Reverse it;
- a duplicate — the same payment entered twice. Reverse one.
These are not yours to post from here
There is deliberately no button for either. An uncashed cheque or a deposit in transit is timing, not error — writing it off would erase a real obligation to make a subtraction come out even. And there is no balancing figure to force the totals to agree, which is the adjustment that makes a set of books stop meaning anything. Fix these at the source instead.
A cheque outstanding for months is a real problem
Either it was lost, or it was never sent, or it was recorded and never issued. All three need investigating rather than carrying forward. Uncashed cheques are where the awkward findings live.
Two accounts
Where you hold separate bank accounts for the operating and reserve funds — required in some jurisdictions, good practice everywhere — reconcile each against its own statement. Transfers between them should appear on both sides in the same period; a transfer showing on one and not the other is the first thing to check.
What "reconciled" means
You're done when every difference between the bank and your books is explained, not when the difference is zero. Outstanding cheques and deposits in transit are legitimate differences. Unexplained ones are not.
Note anything genuinely outstanding for next month's review — the same uncashed cheque appearing three months running is a signal, not a constant.
A monthly routine
| Step | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Download the statement | 2 min |
| Paste and review the match | 5 min |
| Record what's missing | 10 min |
| Correct what's wrong | Varies |
| Note anything still outstanding | 2 min |
Twenty minutes a month, and the year-end financial statement becomes a formality rather than a reconstruction.
Before year end
Reconcile every month of the year before you produce statements, and reconcile the final month before you close the books. Closing a period locks postings dated into it — do it on numbers you've actually checked.
When it won't reconcile
Narrow it to a month
Reconcile month by month until one fails. That's where the problem is.
Look for the amount itself
Search the ledger for the exact difference. Very often it's one transaction.
Check for transpositions
A difference divisible by 9 — $27, $90, $450 — is the classic sign of transposed digits, e.g. 412 keyed as 421.
Check the fund
An expense recorded against the wrong fund reconciles against neither statement if you hold two accounts.
Ask for help
If it still won't come out, contact support with the period and the amount. Don't force it with a balancing entry — an unexplained plug is worse than an unreconciled month.
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.