Bank Statements - does Qbooks still require them?

Does Quickbooks Online expect users to reconcile with bank statements, even with a bank feed?

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I don't understand why QBO has not adopted some of the features that Xero excels in for Banking

  •  Bank (feed) statements can export to Excel*
     
  • Cash coding screen is simple and sortable
     
  • Bank reconciliation report shows all unreconciled transactions including those on the Bank feed

​The lack of this last feature means that we have to request bank statements every quarter and tick off every transaction one by one just like the (good?) old days. Of course I like to see the year end bank statement to make sure the balance is correct, but surely a bank feed means getting bank statements and slowing down the information flow is unnecessary?

Am I  missing something obvious?

*In QBO the bank feed is divided up into 3 tabs "To review" "Reviewed" and "Excluded" which can be exported but you dont have the "luxury" of seeing the bank statement not carved up.

Replies (13)

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By JD
06th Mar 2020 12:12

Not a problem in QBO at all. If the recon screen come back to nil, it takes no more than a couple of seconds - you only need to start ticking things, if the reconciliation screen does not balance (usually as a result of one of the banks dropping a few transactions as part of the feed)

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By SXGuy
06th Mar 2020 13:19

Did QBO implement a clairvoyant add on I was unaware of?

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Replying to SXGuy:
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By carnmores
07th Mar 2020 18:17

Possibly whats your point please?

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By JD
06th Mar 2020 18:40

Interesting - having reread your question, you seem to be happy to treat a bank feed one of and the same as a bank statement.

We tend to treat a bank feed as a data feed, which may or may not be complete (and sometime is not). Requesting real paper/pdf bank statements from the client can be a chore, but it is useful to have their invoices anyway (to cover VAT oddities) If statements are not available, the bank balance for that day is shown on the banking screen.

If everything has been matched/categorised correctly then the old school reconciliation (via accountants tools) takes seconds to complete - and keeps the client/team member up to scratch.

Are you saying that for you, Xero bank feeds and what your clients/team do is that reliable, that you do not need to have any sort of check on the bank until the year end - if so then hats off too you and I clearly have the wrong product and clients

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Replying to JD:
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By johnhemming
07th Mar 2020 10:38

Which raises an interesting question as to what extent Open Banking can be used to obtain reliable bank statements in an electronic form. I have been having discussions with the FCA about this for quite a while, but more recently they appear to be more open to this suggestion than they were 9 months ago.

I will keep people in touch.

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Replying to johnhemming:
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By SXGuy
07th Mar 2020 19:32

Open banking can and does sometimes miss transactions, whether due to an error in the feed or because for example someone doesn't renew the bank feed soon enough after the 90 day expiry period sometimes transactions go missing. You can't rely on it solely. At the very least you should be checking closing balances to make sure nothing has been missed regularly. And the only way to do that is to compare with bank statements.

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Replying to SXGuy:
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By johnhemming
08th Mar 2020 09:29

That's an interesting point. I haven't got into the details of this yet. There are always questions as to whether this is a failure of the design of the project, failure of implementation by software house or failure of implementation by bank.

Personally I don't think systems should allow this. They should carry forward the transactions and ensure that the bank statement from open banking balances with the bank statement at the bank.

This may not be possible because of design flaws in open banking, but as I said I have not yet got into the details.

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Replying to johnhemming:
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By JD
08th Mar 2020 11:56

Would I be correct in thinking that QB online are trialing the supply of statements with open banking in Canada at the moment

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Replying to JD:
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By johnhemming
08th Mar 2020 14:02

I dont know, but it does not appear that open banking is live in Canada yet.

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Replying to johnhemming:
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By JD
09th Mar 2020 14:27

My mistake, you are right re open banking in Canada, but a little info re actual statements being available for interest.

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-ca/banking-currency/open-...

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Replying to JD:
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By johnhemming
09th Mar 2020 21:54

I think I first got electronic statements in the 90s. It may have been the 80s. I did put the first bank on the net in May 1995. (We (STB and myself) beat Wells Fargo by a day).

The thing about open banking is that it should apply to all uk banks.

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Replying to JD:
Jason Grant FCA
By yaakovgrant
13th Mar 2020 10:41

Yes I was. Unless we get a message from the bank via Xero that the feed has stopped working or a case recently on a Barlcays feed where I noticed that there had been some duplications following which someone (who I discovered was Xero support!) had kindly deleted them, but obviously got me nervous, however on the whole bank feeds seem to work. If they didnt, I am sure there would be more of an uproar.

But I am not sure if anyone really got my message because I find that banking on Xero is far far easier if you are happy to rely on the feeds.

Maybe I didnt make it clear - the real issue is once it gets messy with one's client making "payments" (when you have complete control over a bank rec there's not much that can go wrong except for you misposting transactions yourself) But when other people are involed - trying to clear their ledgers by clearing bills or invoices that "they know" have been paid, the fun really starts.

On Xero it is difficult to reconcile clients errors to reality (ie the bank feed ) but it is still manageable as everything is shown on the bank rec report together. On Quickbooks following the bank rec alongside bank statements and the clients mispostings is like doing open heart surgery!

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By carnmores
07th Mar 2020 17:53

the fundamental point is that you need to review entries that are not subject to a classification rule AND clients often by mistake make accidental entries to the bank account so reconciliations are vital and usually very easy. QBO does all the things you mention above and more

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