Beginning Balance off?  You think to yourself, “I don’t remember changing any cleared transactions? How can it be off?”  And then you think, “How the the heck to I put it back?”  Do you need these binoculars to search for the answer????

Correct Beginning Balance:  Find your difference

So it will take a bit of investigative work to find the transaction that was changed and/or deleted.  QuickBooks Online (QBO) makes this investigating very easy to find the offending transaction.  As you will see in the video, you will have a warning box in yellow that will show you exactly which transaction(s) were changed or modified or removed after the bank or credit card account was reconciled last.

Correct Beginning Balance:  Re-reconcile the changed/reinstated transaction

So, you have two options here.  You can just re-reconcile these when you do the next reconciliation.  Select your checks and deposits, make sure they total and then re-reconcile what became un-reconciled (after making any necessary adjustments).  Or you can force the transactions that became unreconciled to re-reconcile as demonstrated in the video.  Then your error message will disappear and you can reconcile the month as you normally would.  This is my preferred method (even though QBO warns you not to) because it gives me a bank reconciliation statement that is more normal to the transactions for that period that were cleared.  But either method works.

Correct Beginning Balance:  Manually undo a bank reconciliation

If it is just a complete mess, see this other post in regard to manually undoing a bank reconciliation.  Sometimes, you just have to go back.  If you know a ProAdvisor or CPA that has QuickBooks Online Accountant version, we can easily undo a bank reconciliation for you in a matter of seconds. You can always reach out to me and for a minimal charge, I can do that for you.   It does require you to give the person an accountant user permission.  I would do this via a shared screen so that you are absolutely sure this is what you want to do.  There are plenty of warnings in the system and it does give you the beginning balance before you undo it.  And perhaps, I could help you discover the problem without having to undo things.  It is a service we provide here at Artesani Bookkeeping.

Last piece of advice: Take a break

If you find you are at wits end trying to reconcile.  You have checked everything and cannot figure out what is wrong, walk away from it.  Just for one day.  I cannot tell you how many times in my career, I have done this.  After awhile, tired eyes and a tired brain just need a break.  The next day, fresh eyes can see so much more.

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