Thursday, December 4, 2008

Daily Bank Reconciliations

What??? No not that!!! Why??? So says the bookkeeper. The CFO must stress the importance of daily bank reconciliations..

In these tough economic times and even when economic times are not so tough the business owner needs to know his cash position on a daily basis in real time. The only way to be certain of your cash position on a daily basis is to do daily bank reconciliations. If you have cash flow problems or cash is simply tight, the business owner cannot afford to find out that a customer’s check bounced 3 days after the fact when the bookkeeper gets the returned NSF check back in the mail. Meanwhile the business owner sent checks on that money already and risks bouncing an important check. If an EFT out of your account or a debit card transaction hits more than once due to clerical error by a vendor or bank what good is it to find out about it when you do the month end bank reconciliation. The important check you sent on money you thought you had just bounced. There are many other situations when you need to know changes to your bank balance in real time! The part time CFO needs to establish a policy of daily bank reconciliations and instill the discipline to make sure it gets done.

By having access to your banking transactions online, daily bank reconciliations should take less than 10 minutes per day. By doing this the business owner will know exactly how much money they have and can make decisions on what bills to pay with more confidence.

By the way you bookkeepers out there, when you do daily bank reconciliations the month end reconciliation is a snap!