Comment by tantalor
8 hours ago
> Ledger balances are calculated by summing all transactions per account. The differences should be as close to zero as possible, with small differences allowed for pending transactions such as weekly Stripe payouts.
That's not quite right. I'm not an accountant, but pending transactions (posted, but not cleared) should be factored into the balance of account, or at least the "available balance" - which is more important the the "current balance".
The idea that you can "allow" accounting discrepancies as "those are probably pending" is wild.
Member of the benchmark team here! Yeah, agree "as close to zero" is a bit imprecise. What we're comparing is the ledger balance (which should include pending transactions / transactions after the statement date) to the statement balance (which wouldn't include those).
The point of the reconciliation check mentioned in the report is to precisely account for that difference (identifying all the transactions that add up to the difference between account balance & statement ending balance and account for those differences). The differences can also be addressed through appropriate journal entries or other adjustments to ensure accuracy in the financial reporting.