Last month's bank reconciliation balanced, but this month's opening does not

Retrieve the prior reconciliation report and external bank statement before making changes. Record the difference between the approved closing balance and the current starting balance. Confirm that the account, currency and reporting date are the same. A remembered balance or a current dashboard screenshot is a weaker starting point than the saved report that was actually reviewed.

Check whether this is a continuing account or the first reconciliation after a conversion. The investigation differs. An existing account may have changed transactions, while a new ledger may contain an incorrect opening entry or incomplete migration. Establish the relevant starting event instead of treating every difference as a new bank charge.

Inspect the software's audit history and reconciliation-discrepancy tools where available. Look for edited amounts, deleted or voided entries, changed account assignments and altered reconciliation status. Intuit identifies these as common causes of beginning-balance problems in previously reconciled QuickBooks Online accounts. Review the actual history; software suggestions still need to be checked against the evidence.

List each change with its original amount, revised amount, date and user. Add the effects and compare the total with the opening difference. An exact match helps establish the cause, but confirm the underlying transaction before restoring anything. Two changes can partly offset, leaving a smaller difference than either individual event.

Ask the person who made a change why it was necessary. It may correct a genuine error in the earlier books. Reversing every change automatically can reinstate that error merely to recover the old reconciliation status.

For an accidental edit, use the source document and prior report to determine the supported correction. For an intentional adjustment, involve the accountant in the period treatment and any need to revise earlier reports. Preserve the explanation and approval in the accounting record. Avoid recreating a deleted payment without checking whether another transaction now records the same event.

Do not overwrite the opening balance to absorb an unexplained amount. That can conceal the actual change and leave income, expenses or another balance incorrect. If the opening entry itself was wrong, document the correct starting date and bank evidence, then review its effect on imported history and any uncleared transactions.

Work through related accounts when a transaction was moved. Fixing the bank side alone may leave a supplier balance, customer receipt or transfer account inconsistent. Confirm the complete entry and its settlement history before considering the issue resolved.

After the correction, reproduce the reconciliation using the supported bank balance and transaction population. Save the resulting report and compare the outstanding items with the prior version. Explain any deliberate differences. A zero starting discrepancy is useful evidence, but the final check must also confirm that the legitimate accounting correction remains in place.

Review who can edit closed periods and reconciled entries. Use the available controls and the company's correction process to require review of changes that affect previously issued reports. Keep necessary corrections possible; the objective is an accountable change history, not a frozen ledger that nobody can repair.

Include the incident in the next close handoff. Identify the cause, entries changed and any related reports updated. The next reviewer should be able to follow the opening balance from the prior approved version without repeating the investigation.