Reconciling payments with the transactions ledger

Bookingo says one number, the bank says another

Reconciling is where the month gets found out. Somebody took cash at the desk and wrote it on a sticky note. A transfer landed on a Tuesday and was recorded the week after. A card payment shows here at full value and reaches your bank later with a fee taken out of it.

Every payment against an invoice creates an entry here, whichever way the money arrived. Card online, cash at the desk, a bank transfer you recorded late — all of them produce the same kind of record. That is what makes the ledger worth reading, instead of three places that never quite agree.

Part-payments appear as separate entries against the same invoice. An invoice settled in three goes shows three lines and stays on the outstanding list until the last one is in.

What each entry tells you

Each entry carries what you need to match it against a line on a statement.

One thing catches people out: the date on an entry is the date the money moved, not the date somebody typed it in. Recording last Tuesday's transfer today puts it on last Tuesday, which is what you want at reconciliation and not what most people expect.

• The amount, and the date the money moved.
• The invoice it was paid against, and that invoice's number.
• The family and the child it relates to, and the programme.
• The centre, where you run more than one.
• How it was paid, and any reference recorded with it.
• What the provider charged you, on online payments.
• Who recorded it, on payments entered by hand.

Why the ledger and the statement never match to the day

Online payments carry the provider's fee alongside the amount, so gross and cost sit together instead of being reverse-engineered from a net deposit.

Payments you recorded yourself carry whatever reference you typed — a cheque number, a transfer reference, the last four digits of a card. That field is only as good as you make it, and it is the first thing you will want when a family and your bank statement disagree. Make filling it in the habit rather than the exception.

Then expect a gap. A payment appears here the moment it succeeds; when it reaches your account is set by your provider's payout schedule, covered in Taking payment online. The two are answering slightly different questions.

Receipts

A receipt is produced when a payment is recorded, with its own number, and can be sent to the family.

Receipt numbers run separately from invoice numbers. An invoice paid in three instalments has one invoice number and three receipts, which is usually what a family asking for proof of payment actually wants.

Refunds, and refunds given as credit

A refund is recorded against the invoice it relates to, with its own reference. The invoice then shows what came in and what went back, not one net figure that hides both.

A refund can also be given as credit on the family's account instead of money leaving your account. Credit sits on the account and comes off a future invoice. It is the better answer when a family is staying with you and moving to something else; money back is the answer when they are leaving. Cancellations and refunds covers when each applies.

A payment entered wrongly

A payment recorded by hand can be removed. Doing that takes the amount back off the invoice, which returns to outstanding, and removes the receipt issued for it.

That is the right tool for money that never arrived — a transfer recorded against the wrong family, an amount typed with an extra digit. It is the wrong tool for money that genuinely arrived and was later given back.

Getting it out of Bookingo

The ledger exports for a date range as a transactions report, with the invoice, the payment, the family, the programme, the payment method and the fee on each row.

Invoices you raised by hand are flagged in that export, so you can separate money that came from bookings from money you billed yourself — see Creating an invoice by hand. Pull the file once for a short range now, before you meet it for the first time at year end.