# How to Reconcile in QuickBooks Online, Screen by Screen

- Author: PreciseBankFlow (https://precisebankflow.com)
- Published: 2026-10-16
- Category: Reconciling in accounting software
- Canonical: https://precisebankflow.com/blog/how-to-reconcile-in-quickbooks-online

> How to reconcile in QuickBooks Online screen by screen: enter the statement balance, tick transactions, read the difference and find past reports.
To reconcile in QuickBooks Online, open Reconcile from the Accounting menu, pick the account, and enter the ending balance and ending date printed on your bank statement. Then tick every transaction that appears on the statement until the Difference reads $0.00. Finish the reconciliation and QuickBooks saves a report of what you ticked.

## Before you reconcile in QuickBooks Online: statement balance and date

You need three things in hand before you open the screen: the bank or card statement for the period, the ending balance printed on it, and the statement's ending date. You also need every transaction for that period already entered and categorized in QuickBooks Online (QBO), or the list you tick against will be incomplete.

Intuit's own guidance, in [Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/statement-reconciliation/reconcile-account-quickbooks-online/L3XzsllsK_US_en_US), says the same: have the statement ready and make sure the period's transactions are entered first.

### A short checklist for the desk

- The statement itself, as a PDF or paper copy, not a screenshot of the online banking page.
- The ending balance and the ending date from that statement.
- The beginning balance on the statement, so you can compare it with what QBO shows.
- Any fees or interest the bank charged that you have not yet recorded.
- A way to mark off statement lines as you go, such as a pen on a printout or a second monitor.

Check the statement arithmetic before you start. The opening balance, plus deposits, less withdrawals, should equal the printed closing balance. If it does not, you have a problem with the statement or with your reading of it, and no amount of ticking in QBO will fix that. PreciseBankFlow runs that footing test on every statement it reads, and it is [opening to CPA and audit firms in small groups](/get-started).

## Ticking transactions on the QuickBooks Online reconcile screen

Ticking is how you tell QBO which transactions cleared the bank in this statement period. You check the box beside each transaction that matches a line on the statement. QBO adds the amount to the running totals at the top of the screen and shrinks the Difference as you go.

The steps below follow the menu path Intuit gives in its help article. Menu names change between releases, and the video on the same page uses Settings in place of All apps, so match the labels to your own screen.

1. Select **All apps**, then **Accounting**, then **Reconcile**.
2. If this is your first time, select **Get started**. Otherwise select **Reconcile**.
3. In the **Account** dropdown, choose the account you are reconciling. Check that you picked the right one when you have several accounts at the same bank.
4. Read the **Last statement ending date** shown on the screen. Your new statement should start the day after it.
5. Enter the **Ending balance** and **Ending date** from your statement.
6. Select **Start reconciling**.
7. Check the box next to each transaction that appears on your statement. Tick deposits and payments separately if the screen splits them into two lists.
8. Watch the **Difference** figure. Continue until it shows $0.00.
9. Select **Finish now**, then **Done**.

Intuit's article also describes an optional upload of the statement at step 6 for reconciliation that QBO assists with. It says verification may take up to an hour, and the video notes that the features you get depend on your plan. This post covers the manual route.

### Working through the list efficiently

Sort the list by date, then work down the statement and the screen together. When a line on the statement has no match, stop and look for the cause instead of moving on. The cause is usually one of four things: the transaction was never entered, it was entered with the wrong amount, it was entered twice, or it sits in the wrong account.

If you connected the account to a bank feed, many transactions arrive already matched and show a check mark. Intuit's article says those do not need rechecking. Still scan them against the statement, because a feed line is only as good as the bank data behind it.

### Reading the Difference as you go

The Difference is the ending balance you typed in, less the cleared balance QBO has built from your ticks and the beginning balance. A positive or negative number tells you the direction of the gap. If you tick a payment that did not clear this month, the Difference moves away from zero, which is a quick signal that you ticked something wrong.

## What does a QuickBooks Online difference of zero actually prove?

A Difference of $0.00 proves one narrow thing: the transactions you ticked add up to the statement balance you typed. It does not prove that the ending balance you typed is the real one, that every transaction is entered correctly, or that nothing is missing from the bank side. Two mistakes of equal size can cancel and still show zero.

Here is a worked example. The figures are made up for illustration.

| Item | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Beginning balance in QBO | $12,400.00 |
| Deposits ticked (3 lines) | $9,150.00 |
| Payments ticked (14 lines) | $7,820.35 |
| Cleared balance | $13,729.65 |
| Ending balance typed from the statement | $13,729.65 |
| Difference | $0.00 |

That looks finished. Now suppose one of the 14 payments was entered at $1,250.00 when the bank paid $1,205.00, and one deposit was entered $45.00 too high. Each error is real, and the two cancel, so the Difference stays at zero. The ledger is wrong in two places. A reviewer who compares the QBO register with the statement line by line would catch both. The Difference would not.

So treat zero as the start of the review, not the end. Three checks are worth doing after you reach it:

- Compare the count of ticked deposits and payments with the count of lines on the statement.
- Compare the beginning balance on the statement with the beginning balance on the screen.
- Scan the unticked items. Each one should be a genuine timing item, such as an outstanding check or a deposit in transit, with a date near the end of the period.

Those unticked items are what a reviewer will ask about, and the [seven-step bank reconciliation process](/blog/how-to-reconcile-bank-statements) explains how to list and support them outside the software.

### When the Difference is not zero

If the number will not reach zero, select **Edit info** on the reconcile screen and recheck the ending balance, the ending date and the beginning balance against the statement. Then look for manually entered transactions with a wrong amount or a duplicate. Intuit's article also notes that you can finish and accept the difference, in which case QuickBooks creates a journal entry for the amount.

Do not take that route lightly. An automatic entry for the gap hides whatever caused it. [Running the reconciliation discrepancy report](/blog/how-to-fix-a-reconciliation-discrepancy-in-quickbooks-online#running-the-reconciliation-discrepancy-report-in-quickbooks-online) is the better first move when the opening balance is off, because it lists what changed since the last reconciliation.

## Where to find past bank reconciliations in QuickBooks Online

Past reconciliations live in the History by account screen. QBO saves a reconciliation report each time you finish, and that screen lists the reports for each account so you can open the one for a given statement period.

To reach it, go to **All apps**, then **Accounting**, then **Reconcile**, and select **History by account**. Choose the account and the period, then open the report. The report shows the statement date, the beginning and ending balances, and the transactions you cleared.

Download or print the report for each period and file it with the statement. Intuit's help for undoing a reconciliation warns that undoing one deletes the report for that period, so a saved copy outside QBO is the only record that survives. That matters most for anyone who must show a reviewer or an auditor evidence of the month-end work. If you ever need to reverse a reconciliation, [unreconciling one transaction](/blog/how-to-unreconcile-in-quickbooks-online#unreconciling-one-transaction-in-quickbooks-online) is the narrow route and leaves the other reports alone.

## How do you reconcile in QuickBooks Online for the first time?

The first reconciliation of an account needs a correct opening balance, because every later reconciliation builds on it. Select **Get started** on the Reconcile page, make sure an opening balance is entered, and reconcile against the first statement you want QBO to cover.

The opening balance should equal the balance on your bank statement from just before you began recording the account in QuickBooks. If you never entered one, QBO will show a beginning balance that does not match any statement, and the Difference will not close. Compare the opening balance entry with the statement before you start, and ask your accountant if you are unsure which date to use.

### Catching up on several months

If you are starting with months of unreconciled history, reconcile one statement at a time, oldest first. Each completed reconciliation sets the beginning balance for the next, so a skipped month breaks the chain. Do not combine three months into one reconciliation, because you lose the month-by-month report that shows when an error crept in.

## QuickBooks Online mistake: reconciling to the bank feed, not the statement

The most common mistake is typing the balance shown in the bank feed or in online banking as the ending balance, instead of the balance printed on the statement. A feed shows what the bank has posted so far. A statement is the fixed record for a closed period, and it is the evidence a reviewer expects.

The two differ for ordinary reasons. The feed may include items posted after the statement cut-off date. It may omit pending items. It may carry a balance that moves every day, so the number you copy on the 3rd is not the number the bank printed for the 31st. If you reconcile to the feed, you can reach $0.00 and still not agree to the statement you will file.

The fix is a habit: always take the ending balance and ending date from the statement document, and keep that document with the reconciliation report. If you only have a feed, download the statement from the bank first.

A second feed trap is matched transactions. A feed line that QBO auto-matched may be matched to the wrong entry, such as a payment to a vendor with a similar amount. Because the reconcile screen shows these lines ticked, the error is invisible unless you compare the statement description with the register payee.

Reconciling is a check on the books against an outside record. If the outside record is also generated from the same feed, the check proves nothing. Keep the statement as the source of truth, and let the feed save you typing, not replace your comparison. When a month still will not close after all of this, the [credit card version of this workflow](/blog/how-to-reconcile-credit-card-in-quickbooks) has its own traps with payments and opening balances, and the [Desktop edition](/blog/how-to-reconcile-in-quickbooks-desktop) uses a different window.