To reconcile QuickBooks Online against a bank statement, open Reconcile, choose the account, enter the statement's ending balance and ending date, then tick each transaction that appears on the statement until the Difference reads $0.00. Finish, and QuickBooks saves a reconciliation report. A nonzero difference means something is missing, doubled or changed.
Before you open the QuickBooks Online reconcile screen
Before you open the QuickBooks Online reconcile screen, have the bank statement for the period in hand and make sure every transaction for that period is already entered in QuickBooks. You need three figures from the statement: the beginning balance, the ending balance and the ending date. Check that this statement starts the day after the last one you reconciled.
The QuickBooks Online help article on reconciling an account sets out the same preparation. It asks you to have the statement ready and to make sure all transactions for the statement period are added and categorized. It also notes that for a connected bank or credit card account, QuickBooks enters the starting balance and downloads transactions for you.
Three checks before you start save time later:
- The statement run is complete. If the last reconciled statement ended on August 31, the one in front of you should begin on September 1. A missing month means the beginning balance will not line up.
- The beginning balance agrees. The statement's beginning balance should equal the ending balance of the last reconciliation in QuickBooks. If it does not, fix that first; the section on opening balance problems below covers the usual causes.
- The bank feed is cleared for the period. Downloaded transactions waiting for review are not yet in the register, so they cannot be ticked off.
Bank feed matching and statement reconciliation are different checks. Matching a downloaded line to a register entry confirms a transaction exists; reconciling confirms the balance agrees with the statement. The post on what bank feed matching actually checks explains the gap between them.
Ticking off transactions in the QuickBooks Online reconcile window
Ticking off transactions in the QuickBooks Online reconcile window means checking the box beside each register entry that also appears on the bank statement. As you tick, the Cleared balance moves toward the statement ending balance. Leave unticked anything not on the statement, such as a check the payee has not cashed yet.
The steps below follow Intuit's help article on reconciling an account, applied to one fictional month. The client, account and figures are examples.
A worked month: Example Client LLC, September 2026
- Open Reconcile. Go to All apps, then Accounting, then Reconcile, and select Reconcile. On a first reconciliation, Intuit's article says to select Get started.
- Choose the account. From the Account dropdown, choose Harbor Federal checking XXXX-4821.
- Check the last statement ending date. QuickBooks shows 8/31/2026, so the new statement should start on 9/1/2026. It does.
- Enter the statement figures. Type the Ending balance, 48,215.60, and the Ending date, 9/30/2026, exactly as printed on the statement.
- Start reconciling. Select Start reconciling. The window lists uncleared register entries dated up to the ending date.
- Tick the deposits. Compare each deposit on the statement with the list. Two customer deposits of 1,500.00 on 9/5 and 9/19 appear on both, so tick both. A 3,400.00 deposit recorded on 9/29 is not on the statement, so leave it unticked.
- Tick the payments. Check 1185 for 2,400.00 and check 1186 for 312.50 cleared, so tick them. Check 1187 for 1,250.00 has not cleared; leave it.
- Find what the statement shows that the register does not. The statement includes a 30.50 service fee and 12.25 of interest that nobody entered. The Difference will not reach zero until they exist in the register.
- Add the missing items. Enter the fee and the interest with the statement date, then tick them in the reconcile window.
- Confirm the Difference is $0.00. With every statement line ticked, the Cleared balance equals 48,215.60.
- Finish. Select Finish now, then Done. QuickBooks saves a reconciliation report.
Intuit's article notes that transactions from a connected bank may already be ticked, because they were matched in the transaction feed. Confirm each pre-ticked item against the statement anyway; a matched feed line is not proof it belongs to this statement period.
The two items left unticked, the 3,400.00 deposit and check 1187, stay uncleared and carry into October. They are timing items, not errors.
What does the QuickBooks Online difference figure mean?
The QuickBooks Online difference figure is the gap between the statement ending balance you entered and the Cleared balance of the items you ticked, adjusted for the beginning balance. A difference of $0.00 means the ticked items explain the statement. Any other figure means an item is missing, doubled, mistyped or ticked by mistake.
Intuit's help article on reconciling gives an order for a nonzero difference. First, select Edit info and confirm the beginning balance, ending balance and ending date match the statement. Second, review transactions entered by hand for errors or duplicates, opening each one to check its details. A mistyped ending balance is the quickest error to fix and is worth checking before anything else.
The amount itself is a clue. A difference that equals one transaction often means that item was ticked when it should not have been, or is missing. A difference that divides evenly by nine often points to two digits swapped in a typed amount. The post on which reconciliation error the difference amount points to has a table that maps amounts to likely causes.
The same Intuit article says that if you still cannot find the error, you can finish and accept the difference, and QuickBooks will create a journal entry for that amount. It advises talking to your accountant first and resolving differences inside the reconciliation where possible. An accepted difference posts to the books without a source document behind it, so keep notes of what was searched with the file for whoever reviews the month.
Undoing a QuickBooks Online reconciliation
Undoing a QuickBooks Online reconciliation reverses a finished reconciliation so its transactions return to uncleared. It is the right move when a whole month was reconciled against the wrong statement or with the wrong ending balance. When only one or two items were cleared by mistake, unreconciling those transactions in the register is the smaller fix.
The QuickBooks Online help article on undoing or removing transactions from reconciliations describes both. To undo a full reconciliation, it says to sign in as the Primary Admin, go to All Apps, Accounting, then Reconcile, select History by account, find the reconciliation, choose Undo from the Action column dropdown, review the warning, tick the checkbox and select Undo reconciliation, then Done.
The article warns that undoing a full reconciliation cannot be reversed and permanently deletes its reports and attachments. Download or print the reconciliation report first, so the record of what was cleared survives.
For a single transaction, the same article describes opening the account's register from the Chart of accounts, finding the entry with an R in the checkmark column, and clicking that box until it is blank, then saving. It notes that removing a cleared transaction changes the beginning balance of the next reconciliation, so reconcile the account again afterwards.
Work through a redo in date order. If August and September both need redoing, fix August first; September's beginning balance depends on it.
Opening balance problems in a new QuickBooks Online file
An opening balance problem appears when the first reconciliation of an account starts from a beginning balance that does not match the bank statement. In a new QuickBooks Online file, the cause is usually the opening balance entered when the account was set up, not a changed transaction, because nothing has been reconciled yet.
The QuickBooks Online help article on fixing beginning balance issues says the same. For an account that has never been reconciled, it suggests comparing the opening balance entry with the bank statement from the day before you started tracking the account in QuickBooks.
For accounts that have been reconciled before, the article lists other causes of a beginning balance that no longer matches: a reconciled transaction edited, deleted, voided, moved or unreconciled; a categorized bank feed transaction undone and returned to pending; or a transaction dated before the last reconciliation marked reconciled by hand. It points to the Reconcile Discrepancy Report, reached from the alert on the Reconcile page, which shows what changed, when and who changed it.
If that report is clear and the balance is still off, the article suggests checking the audit log for deleted or voided transactions, and the register for entries marked R dated after the last completed reconciliation.
A new file has one more trap: the date of the opening balance. If the opening balance is dated January 1 but the first statement you reconcile covers March, the January and February activity has to be in the books, or the first beginning balance will be wrong.
Which QuickBooks Online reconciliation report do reviewers need?
Reviewers need the reconciliation report that QuickBooks Online saves at the end of each reconciliation. It shows the beginning and ending balances and which transactions were cleared and which were left uncleared. Paired with the bank statement for the same period, it proves the month agrees.
The QuickBooks Online help article on viewing, printing or exporting a reconciliation report gives the path: Reports, then Standard reports, search for Reconciliation Report, select the account, choose the reconcile period in the Report period dropdown and select View Report. The Print icon at the upper right prints it.
Three points from that article matter for a review file:
- It is a snapshot. The report is static, so later changes to the books do not appear on it. If someone edits a cleared transaction after the fact, the report still shows the old figure.
- A new report is saved for each reconciliation, even a redo of the same month. Make sure the reviewer has the latest one.
- There is no direct export to Excel. The article's workaround is to copy the report contents, paste them into Excel and adjust the column widths.
For the example month, the review file holds the September statement, the saved reconciliation report showing a 48,215.60 cleared balance, and a note listing the two uncleared items carried to October.
Statement collection comes before any of this. Schema CPA does not connect to QuickBooks Online; it reads the bank statements a client sends, ties each month's balances out to the month before, flags a gap in the run, and exports to Excel or CSV. That confirms the statement set is complete before anyone opens the reconcile screen. The workflow section of the homepage shows the steps. For the same task in other software, see reconciling a bank statement in QuickBooks Desktop, the Xero bank statement reconciliation workflow, and the QuickBooks, Xero and Excel category.