Report v Actual

Hi GARY05,

Thank you for your post. If you have a bank or credit card account linked to MYOB via a bank feed, ideally the Bank feed balance and the Ledger balance (the balance of the account in MYOB) shown on your Dashboard will match. But sometimes you may notice a difference between the two balances.

For credit card accounts, this will appear on the Dashboard as a difference between the MYOB balance and the amount owing on the credit card.

These balances can vary because the MYOB balance is made up of all transactions for that account - including bank feed transactions not yet allocated.

Bank and credit card account balances might differ from the balance in MYOB because of the following reasons:

A. Incorrectly allocated invoices or bills

This is the most common reason for a discrepancy between your balances. This scenario typically looks like this:

1. Let's say you record an invoice for $20.
2. You then manually enter the payment for the $20.
3. The $20 payment is then also presented via your bank feed.
4. Instead of matching the bank feed payment to the payment you entered, you allocate the bank feed transaction to an income account, e.g. sales. This will result in an additional $20 in your bank account which should not be there.

To correct this issue, these transactions need to be found, unallocated from the income account, then matched to the payment transaction.

B. Incorrect opening balance 

It's important to record the correct bank account opening balance as at the date you start entering transactions in MYOB.

For example if you decide to start entering transactions in MYOB from September 2nd onwards, enter the opening balance for your accounts (from a bank statement) as at September 2nd.

To enter an opening balance:

1. Go to the Accounting men and choose Chart of accounts.
2. Open the account you want to enter an opening balance for by clicking its name.
3. Enter the Opening balance for this account.

Enter opening balances as positive numbers. Don't, for example, enter your liability account balances as negative numbers. Enter negative amounts only if accounts truly have negative balances. As a rule, these will be asset accounts that record accumulated depreciation. Click Save.

Need to change a previously entered opening balance? See Entering opening balances.

C. Future-dated transactions

Recording a future-dated transaction will also affect the MYOB balance that is displayed on the Dashboard.

To find a future-dated transaction:

1. Go to the Banking menu and click Find transactions.
2. Choose a date range from today's date to a date in the future (for example 31/12/2050).
3. In the Source Journal field, choose the appropriate journal. If you're not sure what journal to choose, then select All.
4. Any future-dated transactions will be displayed in the transactions list. You can then click into the transaction to correct the date and save it.

If all else fails.

If you're still having problems finding the difference between your bank balances, the definitive resolution is:

1. Make sure all transactions for the relevant account have been allocated or matched. This means there will be no transactions on the Bank feed transactions page appearing as Allocate Me.
2. Go to the Reporting menu, choose Reports then click the Banking transactions report.
3. Specify a wide date range like 01/01/2018 to 31/12/2050.
4. Leave the Source transactions option set to All.
5. Click Accounts and select the required bank account from the Accounts list.
6. Click OK. Any transactions meeting your search criteria appear in the report.
7. Export the report and compare the transactions on the report to the transactions on your bank statement(s). You will find a transaction that appears on one but not the other.
8. You can then resolve the discrepancy by either adding or deleting the offending transaction(s) in MYOB.
9. If necessary, eg. due to bank rounding, you can re-enter the transaction to ensure the amount matches what appeared in the bank feed.

Feel free to write a post if you need further assistance.

Cheers,

Jem