Reconciling an Account in Kemback

Reconciling sounds like accountant’s work, but the idea is simple. Your bank sends a statement that says “on this date, your balance was this”. Reconciling means confirming that your records agree, transaction by transaction, and fixing anything that doesn’t.

It’s the step that makes everything else trustworthy. A budget built on a register with a missing $400 payment, or a duplicate $85 charge, gives you the wrong answer about what you can afford. Reconciling once a month catches those mistakes while they’re still easy to find.

This guide walks through reconciling an account in Kemback, from the statement in your hand to the finished reconciliation.

What you need

• A statement for the account: a paper or PDF statement, or the statement view on your bank’s website. You need two things from it: the statement date (the closing date) and the ending balance.
• The account’s transactions in Kemback, up to at least the statement date. If you import files from your bank, import the latest before you start.
• Edit access: you need to be an owner or editor of the household.

How cleared and reconciled work

Every transaction in a Kemback register has a status, shown as a badge in the Status column:

• pending: entered, but you haven’t confirmed the bank has it yet.
• cleared: you’ve seen it on the bank’s side.
• reconciled: it was part of a finished reconciliation, and it’s now locked.

You can click a pending or cleared badge in the register to toggle it between the two. You don’t have to; reconciling takes care of it. But if you like to tick off transactions as they appear on your bank’s website during the month, those cleared ticks carry into the reconciliation and save time.

Step 1: Open the reconcile screen

1. Open Accounts and click the account’s name to open its register.
2. In the top right, choose Reconcile.

The page is headed Reconcile, with a simple instruction: “Tick what’s on your statement until the difference is zero.” There’s a ← Back to the register link if you need it.

Step 2: Enter the statement details

The top card has four parts:

• Statement date: today by default. Change it to the statement’s closing date.
• Ending balance (USD): type the statement’s ending balance.
• Last reconciled balance: the balance as of your last finished reconciliation, with its date. The first time you reconcile an account, this is the account’s opening balance.
• Difference: what’s still unexplained. It turns green at zero.

Credit cards and loans

For an account you owe money on, enter the balance as a negative number. If your card statement says you owe $1,248.60, type -1,248.60. Kemback stores debts as negative balances, so the difference only reaches zero when the sign matches.

Step 3: Tick what’s on the statement

Below, the card Not yet reconciled lists every transaction in the account that hasn’t been reconciled, with its date, payee and amount. Three things help you here:

• Cleared transactions start ticked, the way they do in Quicken.
• Transactions dated after the statement date are greyed out, because they probably won’t be on this statement.
• Pending transactions carry a small pending badge.

Now go down your statement and tick each transaction that appears on it. Untick anything ticked that isn’t on the statement. As you go, the Difference updates. It’s worked out as the statement’s ending balance minus the last reconciled balance and everything you’ve ticked.

Step 4: Finish when the difference is zero

While there’s a difference, the button reads Finish when the difference is zero and can’t be clicked. When the difference reaches $0.00, it changes to Finish reconciling. Choose it.

The ticked transactions are marked reconciled, and the reconciliation appears under Past statements, showing the statement date, the balance and how many transactions it covered, for example “2026-10-31: $4,812.37 · 42 transactions”.

A worked example

Your checking account’s last reconciled balance is $3,950.00, as of September 30. The October statement closes on October 31 with an ending balance of $4,812.37.

You enter the date and balance. The difference shows $862.37. You tick the paycheck (+$2,600.00), the rent (-$1,500.00), and thirty-odd card and grocery transactions. The difference is now -$45.00: Kemback’s figure is $45 higher than the bank’s.

Something on the statement isn’t ticked, or something ticked isn’t on the statement. Scanning the statement, you find a $45.00 check to a babysitter that cleared on October 28 but was never entered in Kemback. You go back to the register, add it with New entry, return to Reconcile, tick it, and the difference reaches zero. Finish reconciling.

When the difference won’t reach zero

Most differences have one of a handful of causes. Work through them in this order:

1. A missing transaction. Something on the statement isn’t in Kemback: a check, a cash withdrawal, an interest payment or a fee. Add it in the register and tick it.
2. A duplicate. The same charge was entered twice, perhaps once by hand and once by import. Delete the extra one in the register.
3. A wrong amount. $54.30 entered as $45.30. The tell-tale sign: a difference that divides evenly by 9 often means two digits were swapped.
4. A wrong sign. A refund entered as a purchase leaves a difference of twice the amount.
5. A transaction ticked by mistake. Something dated just before the statement date that the bank posted afterwards.
6. The wrong ending balance or date. Check the statement again, including the sign for a credit card.

If the difference is exactly the amount of one transaction, start by looking for that amount.

Reconciled transactions are locked

Once reconciled, a transaction is protected from accidental edits, because changing it would change a balance you’ve already agreed with the bank.

• If you change a reconciled transaction’s category in the register, Kemback asks first: “This transaction is reconciled. Unlock it to change its category?” Changing a category doesn’t change any balance, so this is usually fine.
• If you delete a reconciled transaction, the warning explains that deleting it unlocks it and changes your reconciled balance.
• The cleared/reconciled badge can’t be toggled on a reconciled transaction.

Undoing a reconciliation

Made a mistake? The most recent reconciliation under Past statements has an Undo button. Kemback asks you to confirm: “Undo this reconciliation? Its transactions go back to cleared.” Then fix the problem and reconcile again.

Only the latest reconciliation can be undone, so to go back further, undo them one at a time from the newest.

After a switch from Quicken or Mint

If you’ve switched to Kemback from Quicken, the wizard checks each account’s balance against Quicken’s and marks any that disagree with Differs from Quicken: reconcile it. From Mint, an account you left without a Balance today starts from zero. In both cases, reconciling against your latest statement is the way to set things right: tick everything up to the statement date, and add or correct whatever stands between you and a zero difference.

How often to reconcile

Once a month, when each statement arrives, is enough for most households. Start with your main checking account and the credit card you use most; they have the most transactions and the most room for small errors. Savings accounts with a handful of transactions a month take a minute each.

It’s free, too. Reconciliation is part of every Kemback plan.

#reconciliation #kemback guides

This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. For decisions about your situation, talk to a qualified professional.