Bank reconciliation when you are not on QuickBooks
Your bank app shows the truth. Your books should match it every week — not the night before your accountant’s deadline. A practical reconcile habit for Nigerian SMEs.
- Match bank CSV to your transaction log weekly — not the night before filing.
- Kill duplicates when you both log and import the same transfer.
- Every material line matched, explained, or carried with a note.
Your accountant messages: “Send January bank and books.” You have the GTBank app. You do not have January — you have alerts, a half-filled Excel, and a vague memory of a large transfer to a vendor whose name you spelled three different ways.
Reconciliation is proving those two views — bank and books — tell the same story. Nigerian SMEs skip it until tax filing or fundraising. That is when ₦200,000 in duplicate logs and “mystery” POS fees surface at once.
Bank alerts without logged transactions is not matching — it is hope.
What you are matching
- Bank CSV or statement lines
- Expenses and income logged in Money
- Invoice and bill payments from Trade
- Payroll batch transfers
- Moves between your own accounts (should net to zero with clear labels)
Weekly — not “when we have time”
- Import the last 7–14 days from your bank (CSV works for most Nigerian banks).
- Auto-match obvious pairs — same amount, same day, known vendor.
- Promote unmatched bank lines to expenses or income with a category.
- Kill duplicates — did you log the transfer and import it again?
- Note anything odd: reversals, FX, card fees, failed NIP retries.
Matched lines show vendor and category — not just “TRF OUT.”
Month-end sign-off
Before you close June, every material bank line is matched, written off with a reason, or carried forward with a comment your accountant can read. That is the whole job.
Import bank CSV and reconcile — Promote lines to expenses · match in minutes