Should a bookkeeper be able to prepare a bank reconciliation

v638sg7k1a92bx

Continuing on from my theme of the state of the accountancy profession. Another case of a client bookkeeper and again... no bank reconciliation. The response we get is that "I'm not an accountant, I'm just a bookkeeper".

Maybe the issue is me or my expectations are too high but I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a bookkeeper to prepare a reconciled bank account.

As an accountant, what do do you consider to be within a bookkeepers remit when it comes to year end process?

Marcusm

A bank rec would be part of secondary school bookkeeping so I would say yes!

NSAman

Errrr its a basic thing and YES

v638sg7k1a92bx

NSAman wrote: »

Errrr its a basic thing and YES

That’s what you would think but as I posted here a few weeks ago, I would estimate that 90% of the cases where I’ve dealt with a bookkeeper, the bank reconciliation is wrong. I begs the question as to whether we actually need bookkeepers when all they seem to be doing is data entry.

davindub

Leyla Whining Smooch wrote: »

That’s what you would think but as I posted here a few weeks ago, I would estimate that 90% of the cases where I’ve dealt with a bookkeeper, the bank reconciliation is wrong. I begs the question as to whether we actually need bookkeepers when all they seem to be doing is data entry.

Where they a qualified book keeper or just someone doing the bookkeeping?

Huge difference.

NSAman

Do it yourself...save a fortune..:)

Stratvs

davindub wrote: »

Where they a qualified book keeper or just someone doing the bookkeeping?

Huge difference.

They could be an ‘accountant’ doing the bookkeeping, after all it’s not a protected term. :rolleyes:

davindub

Stratvs wrote: »

They could be an ‘accountant’ doing the bookkeeping, after all it’s not a protected term. :rolleyes:

Isn't that a similar point?

An qualified (AITI) bookkeeper (or accountant) can more than likely reconcile a bank statement to TB if they accept the work. I'm not saying unqualifed persons would not be able to do the job, but if not qualified you need to consider what the person understands as completing the bookkeeping/ capability to do so before relying on the work or part thereof. Charge appropriately.

But there are a lot of staff /owners with no training who try using a package like zero and don't really know how/ what to keep reconciled.

v638sg7k1a92bx

davindub wrote: »

Isn't that a similar point?

An qualified (AITI) bookkeeper (or accountant) can more than likely reconcile a bank statement to TB if they accept the work. I'm not saying unqualifed persons would not be able to do the job, but if not qualified you need to consider what the person understands as completing the bookkeeping/ capability to do so before relying on the work or part thereof. Charge appropriately.

But there are a lot of staff /owners with no training who try using a package like zero and don't really know how/ what to keep reconciled.

There are also people who advertise and sell their services as a bookkeeper who cannot prepare a reconciled bank account. Even if they just copied the transactions directly from the bank statement, it’s actually more difficult to get it wrong than it is to get it right.
Solicitors bookkeepers are another humdinger. E35 per hour and invariably handed with a dogs dinner of a reconciliation for the client account which doesn’t agree to the tb and some long winded story about how they didn’t know how to reconcile.

We’ve gotten to the stage of passing the problem back to clients because in the past we would help them, work with the bookkeeper, tidy it up and post the journals for them only to do it all again next year. It would actually be easier if they did nothing and we prepared the accounts from scratch.

Wages reconciliations are another nightmare. Most of the time the bookkeeper will just post the bank transaction, not the wages journal because they’re “just the bookkeeper”, one week it’s posted to the p&l the next week it’s posted to the BS and then when you go to reconcile the wages the net payments don’t agree to the payroll reports not to mention that the bookkeeper is also preparing the wages each week!

tanit

davindub wrote: »

Isn't that a similar point?

An qualified (AITI) bookkeeper (or accountant) can more than likely reconcile a bank statement to TB if they accept the work. I'm not saying unqualifed persons would not be able to do the job, but if not qualified you need to consider what the person understands as completing the bookkeeping/ capability to do so before relying on the work or part thereof. Charge appropriately.

But there are a lot of staff /owners with no training who try using a package like zero and don't really know how/ what to keep reconciled.

As a fully qualified accounting technician (and qualified accountant) I can say that an accounting technician can do more than reconcile the different ledgers, they can take take sets of accounts to draft trial balance as you say above, so they are more than prepared for the task (I was preparing draft accounts before I started to study in Chartered)

The problem is that that people think that entering data in a program is bookkeeping and that is only data entry (not to speak that it needs to be done properly to be good data entry). A bookkeeper should always be able to make reconciliations that's what separates them from plain data entry assistants. But people start with the thing "you start a job and you learn as you go" which is true for people that want to learn on the job, and then they go calling themselves something else (bookkeepers, accountants, etc)

v638sg7k1a92bx

tanit wrote: »

As a fully qualified accounting technician (and qualified accountant) I can say that an accounting technician can do more than reconcile the different ledgers, they can take take sets of accounts to draft trial balance as you say above, so they are more than prepared for the task (I was preparing draft accounts before I started to study in Chartered)

The problem is that that people think that entering data in a program is bookkeeping and that is only data entry (not to speak that it needs to be done properly to be good data entry). A bookkeeper should always be able to make reconciliations that's what separates them from plain data entry assistants. But people start with the thing "you start a job and you learn as you go" which is true for people that want to learn on the job, and then they go calling themselves something else (bookkeepers, accountants, etc)

Another part of the problem is that there is a perception that anyone, regardless of qualifications or experience, can be thrown in to do the bookkeeping. Ah sure Patricia down the road is looking for a few hours she can do the bookkeeping on Tuesdays and Thursdays for half a day. All of a sudden, Patricia is forevermore a bookkeeper.

searunner

Creditors, Debtors & Bank Reconciliations are a basic requirement for any bookkeeper.

v638sg7k1a92bx

searunner wrote: »

Creditors, Debtors & Bank Reconciliations are a basic requirement for any bookkeeper.

You would think so but the reality is far from the case.