Bank Reconciliation Post Conversion

Bank Reconciliation Post Conversion

How to deal with the reconciliation post-conversion can vary depending on how up-to-date the accounting data file was when it was uploaded for conversion. In addition, whether you ordered a history versus balances service will influence when you need to import the bank transactions into Xero.

Manual reconciliation


If the source file was quite up to date and there are not that many transactions to reconcile you can import a CSV file from your bank. Start from the day after the bank account was last reconciled in the source data up until the day before the Bank Feeds commence in Xero. For example: If the last reconciliation in the source file was 31/05/23 you would be able to import the transactional data from 1st June 2023 up until the day before the bank feeds start. Once you have imported the missing data you can commence reconciliation.

This will match up the unreconciled transactions that came across during the conversion. 
Please refer Xero support for further assistance importing bank statements:

Multi reconciliation

If there are many unreconciled transactions converted from the source data there is an alternative method to quickly reconcile transactions post-conversion.

Go to the Account transactions tab. From here you can activate multi reconciliation by clicking on the top right question mark and choosing "Enable Mark as Reconciled". Once enabled, you can manually reconcile in bulk.

For further details see Xero help:
Note - This assumes that all these transactions actually match bank statement transactions imported from the source file. It should not be used when reconciling against an uploaded CSV bank statement.

Tick and Flick

If the file had not been reconciled fully when it was converted then there may be some cleanup work needed in Xero. Usually, the best way to complete this is as follows:

1. Check that the conversion balance for the Bank account matches the actual bank statement

For example if you selected a conversion date of 30 June 2023. Please run a reconciliation report for the bank account in Xero as at this date to determine if the data in Xero matches the actual bank statement as at 30 June 2023. 

2. Month by month reconciliation until the report does not match the actual bank statement

Once you have confirmed that the starting balance is correct we recommend completing a month by month reconciliation to ensure that the reconciliation report actually matches the bank statements.  Please see below an example of why the balance in Xero may not match the paper form bank statement. Please note that there could be other circumstances as to why there are discrepancies. 
  • Data entered into the source file on the incorrect dates ie payment may have been entered as received into the software prior to the funds entering the bank
  • Missing or incorrect transactions in the source file
  • Transactions deleted, voided or amended post-conversion in Xero.
Once you have determined which month the bank account no longer reconciles to the actual bank statement then please complete the following steps to assist with identifying the discrepancies:
  • Have the paper bank statements for this month on hand
  • Prepare the Bank reconciliation report in Xero for this month 
  • Review the statement exceptions to see if the discrepancy is easily identifiable
  • If not open the 'account transaction' tab and search for the month in question
 Then you will need to start:
  1.   Ticking the transactions on the hardcopy statement that match and once completed flick over and continue to the next page to repeat the process, in this way identify any transactions that appear on the bank statement that do not appear in Xero
  2. Similarly identify any transactions that appear in Xero that are not on the bank statement
  3. If the transaction is on the bank statement and not on Xero add manually using the spend and receive money tools.
  4. If the amount is in Xero and not on the bank statement you will need to speak to your bookkeeper or Accountant to understand the implication of removing this transaction.

  • TIP: Sometimes it is helpful to have an extra tab open in which you can search for amounts separately in Xero. This way you can pick up transactions that do appear in the organisation however they may have been entered on an incorrect date.

Once you have updated the data to match the Bank Statements then re-run the reconciliation report and ensure that the data now matches the bank statements. Once the bank account reconciles to the actual bank statement then you can move onto the next month and repeat.


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