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Many people find it very difficult to balance their accounts at the end of the month, and some even pay bankers and accountants to do it for them. However balancing your account can be a very easy process. As an accounting major, and having worked at a bank for several years, I would like to share some of my knowledge and experience with you, and show you how to reconcile your account in just a few simple steps.

Firstly, you will need to set up a simple table in which you will keep a record of all your transactions. This can be done in a journal manually, or using a simple spreadsheet in excel. This table should consist of 5 columns labeled Date, Withdrawals/Debits, Deposits/Credits, Description, and Balances. Each transaction will be entered in a separate row, as a result the number of rows will vary. As soon as this is done you are ready and on your way.

The next step is to enter the balance in your account at the beginnng of the month, under the balance column in your spreadsheet or journal. Every transaction done throughout the month must be recorded, keeping a brief description of the payee, check number or place of transaction in the description column. It is very important to ensure that all transactions are entered, because the omitting of a single entry will put the account out of balance.

At the end of the month make a subtotal of all your withdrawals in the withdrawal column, and a subtotal of all the deposit in the deposit column. To find you ending balance, add the amount in the deposit column to you beginning balance and subtract the withdrawals. Alternatively the calculations can be done after every transaction, adding the deposits and subtracting the withdrawals from your ending balance respectively. If you are using an excel spreadsheet the calculations will be done for you.

You are now one step away from reconciling you account. If your balance corresponds to the balance in your bank statement at the end of the month your account is balance, but it is very likely that the balances will  differ. In many cases there will be transactions done by the bank that will not appear in you personal records. These transactions include interest, service charges, automatic payments and direct deposits from your employer. All the transactions in the deposit section of you bank statement should be added to the balance in your personal record, and all those in the debit section should be subtracted. Sometimes a few checks you issue will not be presented for payment by the end of the month, and will not appear on the bank statement. Simply subtract these amounts from the balance on the bank statement. At this point the balance in your spreadsheet/personal records should be equal to the balance in your bank statement, your account has been reconciled.