If the Bank Balance Is Off, Restarting the Reconciliation Is Usually the Wrong Move
When the bank balance in MIP® does not match the statement ending balance, the first instinct is often to start over. That usually creates more work without addressing the cause. In most cases, the issue is in the reconciliation header, not the transactions themselves.
Editing the statement balance in the header recalculates the unreconciled difference immediately. This allows you to see whether the variance is real or simply the result of an incorrect starting point. If the balance is still off after the update, the next step is to confirm that the prior month’s ending balance rolled forward correctly and that previous reconciliations are locked. Those two conditions control continuity from one period to the next.
Restarting skips this logic and masks the underlying problem. Correcting the header keeps the reconciliation intact and preserves the audit trail, which matters when someone later asks how the numbers moved from one month to the next.
This video is for accounting teams that want reconciliations to be fixable without rework and defensible without extra explanations. It is not intended for organizations that routinely restart reconciliations instead of resolving setup or rollover issues.
McGovern Consulting Group provides MIP Accounting® Training and Implementation Services. We focus on how reconciliations are structured because most problems are solvable once the mechanics are understood.
If you want to spend less time restarting and more time finishing reconciliations, schedule time with us to review your process.
https://mcgoverncg.com/schedule/
If you prefer to strengthen your understanding first, free MIP® fund accounting training is available here.
https://www.freemipfundaccountingtraining.com/
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