How to Reconcile in QuickBooks Online for the First Time

Quick Answer: Before your first reconciliation in QuickBooks Online, open the account's register and confirm that the opening balance entry equals your bank balance on that same date, and that it is the only transaction marked R. Then reconcile the first statement that begins after the opening balance date, and work forward one statement at a time, oldest first, until you reach the current month.

The first time you reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online, the hard part is not ticking transactions; it is making sure the starting point is right. QuickBooks treats the opening balance as already reconciled, so any error in that one figure shows up as a difference you cannot tick away. Check it against the bank, pick the right starting statement, then catch up in date order.

This article covers only what is different about that first session. The routine monthly procedure, from entering the ending balance to selecting Finish now, is in how to reconcile in QuickBooks Online.

Why does the first reconciliation behave differently?

Every later reconciliation inherits its beginning balance from the one before it. The first one has nothing before it, so QuickBooks uses the account's opening balance instead. Intuit's article on fixing beginning balance issues during your first reconciliation puts the rule plainly: on a first reconciliation, the opening balance is the only entry that should already be reconciled.

How that opening balance got there depends on how the account was set up:

• Connected through the bank feed. QuickBooks set the opening balance from the bank's real balance on the date you chose to start downloading transactions. It is usually right, with one known gap: items that were still pending at the bank on that day may be missing from it.
• Created by hand. Whoever set up the account typed a figure, sometimes from memory or from a balance on the bank's app that included pending items. These are the ones that most often need correcting.
• Created with no balance at all. The account starts at zero, which only works if it really was a new account with nothing in it.

How do you check the opening balance?

Intuit's three-part check takes about five minutes.

Find the entry in the register

Go to All apps > Accounting > Chart of accounts, find the account, and select View register. Look for the line with Opening balance equity in the Account column. Note its date and amount. If several lines carry an R, the opening balance is the sum of all of them.

Compare it with the bank

Find the balance your bank reported for the end of that same day. A statement whose closing date matches is ideal; failing that, use the daily balance in your online banking history. If the two figures differ, open the Opening balance equity entry, change the amount in the Deposit column to the bank's figure, and select Save.

Make sure nothing else is reconciled

Scan the checkmark column. The opening balance should show R; every other transaction should show C or be blank. If another line shows R, someone marked it by hand. Select it, click the checkmark box until it is blank, and save. Leaving a stray R in place makes the first reconciliation's beginning balance wrong before you start.

Which statement do you reconcile first?

Pick the first statement whose period starts the day after the opening balance date. The table covers the common setups.

Mid-period starts are the most awkward. The opening balance then sits partway through a statement, so the statement's beginning balance and QuickBooks' disagree by whatever moved between the statement start and your opening date. Dating the opening balance to a statement close removes that mismatch completely.

What about pending items and older transactions?

Two kinds of transaction trip up a first reconciliation.

Items pending at setup. If a check or card charge was pending when the bank feed set the opening balance, the bank's balance on that day excluded it, but the item later posts and may download into QuickBooks as a new transaction. That is correct; tick it on the statement where it actually cleared. What is not correct is an opening balance taken from a banking app's available balance, which can already reflect pending holds. Use the statement's ledger balance instead.

Transactions dated before the opening balance. If you later enter or import transactions from before your start date, they change the account's running total even though the opening balance already accounts for that money. Intuit has separate guidance for reconciling these older transactions; the short version is that they must either be removed or the opening balance must be moved back to before them, never both kept as they are. If you plan to bring in a year of history, the guide to importing old transactions into QuickBooks Online explains how to do it without double-counting.

How do you catch up several months?

Reconcile in strict date order. Each finished reconciliation becomes the next one's beginning balance, so skipping ahead means the skipped month's items get ticked against the wrong statement.

1. Gather every statement from the opening balance date to today. Most banks let you download a year or more of PDFs from their website.
2. Confirm all transactions for the oldest month are in QuickBooks and categorized. Fill gaps before you open the Reconcile page.
3. Reconcile the oldest statement and finish it at a $0.00 difference.
4. Attach the statement PDF when you finish so it is filed with that period's report.
5. Repeat for the next statement. Uncleared items from the prior month will still be on the list; tick them when they appear on the bank's statement.
6. Stop and investigate the first time a month will not balance. Errors compound, and a problem left in March makes April through September harder.

Missing months are where most of the time goes. If the bank feed did not reach back as far as your opening balance date, the earlier transactions have to come from somewhere, and retyping them from PDFs invites the very errors reconciliation is meant to catch. QuickBankConvert reads the statement PDF itself, so you download the file from your bank and upload it without giving us a bank login, then import the CSV or QBO result. For a one-off catch-up, a seven-day pass covers 100 statements without a subscription; the pricing page has the details, and the QuickBooks integration page explains the import side.

When should you hand it to an accountant?

Fixing an opening balance changes equity, and if the books have already been used for a filed tax return, changing figures in a closed year has consequences beyond the bank account. Ask your accountant before editing an opening balance dated in a year that has been filed, or if the account has been reconciled by someone else before and you suspect earlier sessions were forced through with adjustments. An accountant user can also undo a run of past reconciliations in one action, which is quicker than unticking months of transactions.

Related guides

• How to reconcile in QuickBooks Online, the routine monthly steps
• Undo or correct a past reconciliation in QuickBooks Online
• Bank statement reconciliation guide
• What you need to reconcile a bank statement