Okay, I wasn't sure how to even phrase a title that would make the most sense...but here's my dilemma and question:
I have been trying to figure out a simpler way to handle (& reconcile) the deposits made by my merchant account provider that go into my bank account.
Right now, I look at my bank statement and see a deposit on any given day that includes a number of sales transactions in that one deposit. I use Quickbooks, which puts the sales transactions into Undeposited Funds until I manually go into Quickbooks to make a deposit into my bank account. (Not to be confused with the real deposit that was already made to my actual bank account).
The problem: Sometimes I have the hardest time trying to figure out exactly which sales transactions make up that one deposit on a particular day. The dates and amounts don't always match up to what my statement from my merchant account provides.
There must be an easier or better way to reconcile sales transactions, deposits and bank statements. Anyone have a good system for handling this? If so, could you please share? I know I'm wasting a lot of precious time and getting frustrated in the process.
Sorry to sound negative, but we've been doing this for 8 years and have never found a solution. It seems the bank, our site, credit card processor, etc. is on a different time zone, or some other variable, so the amounts/timing of batch settlement never make sense. Makes it very difficult to spot any errors without some type of forensic accounting experience!
I had a lot of trouble with this until I asked the merchant account provider to switch to monthly billing (probably a more correct term, but not sure what it is) instead of pulling the processing fee out of each transaction. This makes it so that most deposits match up.
The exception is that certain credit cards are deposited separately, so while Visa and MC are deposited together and the deposit will match what we batched, if a Discover card was run it will be in it's own deposit.
RRW, I'm sure you're right - this problem does probably have a lot to do with varying time zones.
As far as monthly billing - I think that's what I'm already set up on - but I will definitely look into this. I have been able to download transaction reports that show order numbers and which card was used per transaction. I use this along with my bank statement to separate things out. It's just the Mastercard and Visa transactions that are batched into larger ones with dates that don't match up that are giving me a fit.
But talking with my merchant account provider about my dilemma is a very good idea.
Just a little update. I did talk with my merchant account provider who suggested the same thing that you did Mueller - to switch to monthly billing. So, hopefully this will alleviate at least one major problem when it comes time to reconciling everything.
Just a little update. I did talk with my merchant account provider who suggested the same thing that you did Mueller - to switch to monthly billing. So, hopefully this will alleviate at least one major problem when it comes time to reconciling everything.
Thanks again.
It made a huge difference for us. Hope it does for you as well.
Merchant Account Deposits & Reconciling with Bank
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