Reconciliation

I have done July's reconciliation and even have the report signed and filed away, but for curiosity I looked at it again on MLS. Surprizingly it shows unreconciled differences! How can this be?

Has anybody else done reconciliation for a particular month and have found later that it contains unreconciled differences?

Yes. Which is why you need to file your reconciliations away. You can't simply go back and re-do it and have it come out.

jared wrote:I have done July's reconciliation and even have the report signed and filed away, but for curiosity I looked at it again on MLS. Surprizingly it shows unreconciled differences! How can this be?

It can happen because corrections to transactions in MLS are dated with the same date as the original transaction. So for example, if you canceled a donation because of a returned check, and the date of the donation batch was in July, it may well cause your reconciliation to be out of balance.

If such corrections had been done before you reconciled (but after the end of the month of July), they would have resulted in the need for a Temporary Item to make the reconciliation balance. Then the correction would show up on the August financial statement, so then the Temporary Item would get checked off and no longer be an issue.

But the good news is that you don't have to worry about going back and making every month in the past reconcile in MLS again. As RussellHltn wisely said, just reconcile, file the printed reconciliation report, and move forward. Remember what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back!

Talk about timing!

This evening I have a meeting with one of our stake auditors and a member of the stake presidency to discuss several audits done in our stake. During one unit's audit, the auditor discovered that the clerk had done the monthly reconciliations but never printed them out thinking that it was saving paper (I guess). I have been looking for good reasons why this is not a good practice - beyond not having the monthly reconciliation signed as required by instruction. This short discussion is a great example of why the reconciliation needs to be printed out and filed.

Thanks
Jim

jared wrote:I have done July's reconciliation and even have the report signed and filed away, but for curiosity I looked at it again on MLS. Surprizingly it shows unreconciled differences! How can this be?

Has anybody else done reconciliation for a particular month and have found later that it contains unreconciled differences?

This usually occurs because of an outstanding check. If you write a check in June 2009 from the Other account and it doesn't clear until August 2009, you'll wait until August 2009's reconcile to check it off the expenses tab. If you were to go back and look at July 2009's reconcile you'll show unreconciled differences in the amount of that check and you'll also notice that check is showing cleared in July even though you checked it off in August. When you clear a check on the expenses tab, it clears the check going forward and going back.

This is not a problem. Like the previous posts have stated, unless there has been a returned check or an adjustment to a unit check or batch, you don't need to go back and look at previous reconciles.

I always tell our ward clerks: get the reconciliation right, print it, sign it, file it and NEVER go back to it!!

That lesson was brought home by a clerk who decided to go back a year and make a correction (that didn't need doing in the first place) then couldn't figure out why all his reconcilliations went out of balance.