Monthly Bank Reconciliation Template
Two sided, so there is nowhere for a plug to hide, and every outstanding check arrives with its age and its deadlines.
Free download · No account needed
Reconciliation by Account
[Entity] — cash at [__ ___ 20__]
Two calculations that have to arrive at the same number. There is no cell between them and nothing will add one.
| Acct | Bank side | Amount | Book side | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Statement closing balance | — | General ledger cash | — |
| — | Add deposits in transit | — | Book side entries | — |
| — | Less outstanding checks | — | ||
| — | Bank errors claimed | — | ||
| — | Adjusted bank | — | Adjusted book | — |
One question decides which side an item belongs on
| Does it resolve on its own, on a date you can name? | Bank side |
| Will it still be here next month without an entry? | Book side |
| Do you not know what it is? | Book side, at full amount, with an owner |
The two sides meet or the account stays open. A gap is an item nobody has found yet, and finding it is the work.
Every bank reconciliation template you can download has a difference cell at the bottom and an explanation column beside it. That cell is why the form always balances. Anything that will not fit goes in it with a sentence attached, the sentence gets copied forward next month, and two years later the sentence is the only surviving record of a receipt the processor reversed in March. The form did its job perfectly. It agreed with itself.
This pack has two columns and no third place. The bank column takes only what resolves on its own, on a date you can name. The book column takes only what needs an entry, and every row carries an amount, a debit and a credit. Larkspur Provisions closes May across five accounts with seven book side entries netting 2,219.50 and a 24,660.00 bank error, and the two columns meet at 1,892,597.85. Feed it from converted statement PDFs or a normalized trial balance.
An outstanding check is a dated instrument, not a subtraction. UCC 4-404 frees a bank from any obligation to pay one presented after six months and leaves it free to charge the account anyway, which is how a check voided in February gets paid in May. UCC 4-406 shuts the forgery window one year after the statement is available, without regard to care on either side. And the money never becomes income: Delaware presumes most property abandoned at five years, so the disposition is a report date. Run it beside the transaction categorization pack.
What's in the pack
Reconciliation by Account sheet
One row per account with the bank side and the book side calculated separately and landing on the same figure. There is no difference column, so an amount nobody understands cannot be parked.
Book Side Entries sheet
Every item the ledger has never heard about, as a postable row: amount, debit, credit, the statement line it came from, and whether it will be back next month.
Outstanding Items sheet
Every uncleared check and deposit with its issue date, its age in days, where it sits against the six month presentment window, the state whose dormancy schedule governs it, and a named disposition.
Cleared Log sheet
What cleared and how fast, plus the amount issued beside the amount paid, the date the statement was made available and the date somebody examined it. That gap is the UCC 4-406 exposure you control.
Aged Differences sheet
Anything carried across more than one period, with the side it arrived on, the side it is on now, and the month it should have been promoted rather than the month it was.
Reconciliation Procedure
The two sided method, the one question that decides which side an item belongs on, and the rule that a bank side item open past two statement cycles is presumed mislabelled.
The Three Windows
Six months, one year and the dormancy period, worked out in full with the dates they produce, so the reconciliation stops being a formality and starts being the control that finds an altered check.
Disposition of a Stale Check
The four honest endings for a check that has stopped moving, and why voiding it to other income is not one of them. Each one carries the test that tells you which case you are in.
Review Note
Six checks a reviewer runs and two questions they leave behind, ordered so review starts at the entry list and the aged items and reaches the balances last.
Space rule
Every item lands on one side and neither side has a plug. It governs every prompt here, and it is why nothing in this space will close a gap by writing the gap down.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Open the pack in River and let the agent build it from your own statements, or download the blank Word and CSV files instantly with no account.
- 2
Send the statements and the ledger cash detail
Every account you reconcile, for the same period, plus last month's reconciliations if you have them. PDFs, exports and phone photographs of a statement all work, and a partial set is a normal start.
- 3
Let each side take only its own items
Bank side for anything that resolves on a nameable date, book side for anything needing an entry. Where the two do not meet, the account stays open and the gap gets found, not written down.
- 4
Date every open item, then promote what is not timing
Age each outstanding check from issue, check it against the presentment window and the governing state, and move anything the account's own clearing history says was never going to clear.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Completely. Take the Word documents and CSV sheets with no signup, no card and no trial. Edit with AI is an optional second path for anyone who would rather the agent reconcile their own accounts than fill the grid by hand. More packs sit in the template library.
Why is there no difference cell?
Because a form with one always balances. Everything that resists explanation lands there, gets a sentence, and comes back next month wearing the same sentence. Two independent calculations that must agree leave nowhere for that to happen, so an unresolved amount stays visible as an open account instead.
Can I just void an outstanding check that is years old?
That records revenue nobody earned and cancels a debt that still exists. Delaware presumes most property abandoned five years after the obligation to pay arises, wages included, so an uncashed check becomes reportable to a state rather than income to you. The pack offers four other endings.
How does this differ from the close checklist?
The monthly close pack runs the cycle: what happened, in what order, and when the period locked. This does one task inside it properly. Once cash is reconciled, evidencing the rest of the balance sheet is the substantiation pack.
Does it handle card and processor accounts?
Yes, and those are where the mislabelled items live. A payout is net of fees, refunds and chargebacks while the ledger booked the gross, so the residue looks exactly like a deposit in transit. Decompose the payouts first with settlement reconciliation.
What format are the downloaded files?
Four .docx documents covering the procedure, the three windows, the dispositions and the review note, plus five .csv sheets, all in a single zip. Everything opens natively in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with no conversion step.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It spins up a free River account with this pack installed as a private workspace, already primed to read your statements, split every reconciling item onto the correct side, and date the open ones. Send nothing and it writes nothing. Card statements route through the receipt matcher.
Reconcile it, do not balance it
Download the blank pack as Word and CSV files, or open this exact pack in River and let the agent reconcile your own accounts.
Edit with AI