Reconciling your bank account

Reconciliation answers one question: does the app's version of your bank account actually match the bank's? When it does, everything built on top of it, your P&L, your tax totals, your cash runway, can be trusted without a second thought.

What you need

Your bank's statement (or just the online balance) for the account and date you're reconciling to, and GBooks Air open to that account's transaction list.

Step 1: Pick a reconciliation date

Usually your statement date or month-end works fine. Note the bank's stated balance as of that date.

Step 2: Compare it to GBooks Air's balance

Open the account and check the running balance on the same date. If it matches the bank exactly, you're done — that's a clean reconciliation, no further digging required.

Step 3: If it doesn't match, work through the usual suspects

1. Missing transactions — did your CSV import actually cover the full period? Check the date range of your last import against the reconciliation date.
2. Duplicates — look for a transaction appearing twice with the same amount and a similar date. This happens most often with overlapping CSV exports.
3. Transfers miscategorized as income or expense — a transfer between your own accounts should be marked as a transfer, not revenue or a cost. Get this wrong and it throws off the balance and inflates your P&L at the same time.
4. A transaction dated in the wrong period — a late-month transaction the bank posted early the next month (or the reverse) can throw off a period boundary even when nothing's actually missing.

Step 4: Fix it and check again

Correct whatever you find and compare the balances once more. Businesses with clean books usually resolve a discrepancy in under ten minutes once they know to check these four things, in this order.