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Reconciliation

There are two methods in Budget Express to perform an entry reconciliation: manually through the daily operation screen or with the automated Budget Express reconciliation wizard.

Here is a video showing the different ways of doing your bank and credit card reconciliation.

Manual Reconciliation

In the calendar, select an expense or income operation to reconcile (see below how to reconcile other operations).

Select Actual Spends.

Click on Add to enter the actual expense.

After saving the actual expense operation, you can choose to make it actual right away by setting the flag “This operation took place” to Yes or do so at a later date. Note you can use the Global Reconciliation feature  to set all operations Actual Expense flags to Yes in a single action right from the calendar.

Budget Express Reconciliation Wizard

The Budget Express reconciliation wizard allows you to reconcile bank and credit card accounts entries.

The bank reconciliation process is done in three steps.

Step 1 is to download your bank and credit card data file from your financial institution. Accepted formats are QFX (Quicken), OFX (Money) and CSV (Excel). We recommend QFX and OFX files. The CSV format does not work with all banks or credit card company.

Click the box to search the file on your computer or drag and drop the file in the box to download the file.

Click Next to move on to the next step or click Cancel to ignore reconciliation and return to the calendar menu.

Reconciliation

Step 2 takes place in the reconciliation panel where actual operations are linked to operation planned in Budget Express.

The left panel displays the entries from the data file from the bank or credit card institution.  The entries are sorted between bank Accounts or Credit.

If you have several operations for a single period, you can use the navigation menu  to move through the pages.

 

The right panel contains the expense and income operations for the current month. All other operation types can be reconciled in the calendar only. You can select a different period from the drop-down menu. Operations are sorted in chronological order. If you have several operations for a single period, you can use the navigation menu  to move through the pages.

How to reconcile

Click the box at the right of an operation to begin the reconciliation process  .

 

Next click the Conciliate  button to link the actual entry and the planned operation. Warning, you will not be able to remove a reconciliation done by mistake in this menu, you will be able to do so only in the calendar.

You will be able to enter the amount you wish to reconcile to a particular account:

Edit the amount if you need to reconcile part of that purchase to another subcategories (You bought groceries and clothes at Costco, enter the amount for each purchase).

When an operation is reconciled, its amount turns blue and the reconciled amount replaces the planned one. When the same operation is reconciled again, the amounts are added.

Before and after :

Important note, the reconciliation action changes the operation indicator to “This operation took place” to “Yes” automatically in the daily operation screen. You can change it back to “No” from the calendar.

This is what you will see in the daily operation screen:

You can also choose multiple transactions in the left panel to be reconciled in one planned operation:

Choose multiple transactions, then click on the subcategories in the right panel:

Apply to reconcile all those transactions to one subcategories on one click.

Creating a New Operation (Actual or Planned)

You are faced with two options when no planned operation is found to link to an actual entry.

The first option is to create a new actual operation for the entry to reconcile. Click the red plus sign right of the check box.

It creates a new daily operation for the selected transaction in the associated budget category.

The second option is to create a new operation. Click the red button in the lower right corner of the page.

Select whether the operation is of the income or expense type and follow the instructions of the income or expense sections accordingly to create a new operation.

Click Next when you are done or click Back to return to the previous menu.

End

In the End menu, click Finish to terminate the reconciliation and navigate to the calendar.

Important  The data from the reconciliation file are no longer available once you click Finish. You would need to download them again if you needed to review them.

Click Back to return to the Association menu if needed.

If you attempt to exit the reconciliation process before clicking Finish, a confirmation message is displayed.

If you click Yes, you will return to the calendar page and will need to start over the reconciliation process if need be. Important note, every operation reconciled before exiting will be completed.