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thurd28
Jun 8, 2009, 12:33 PM
Do I subtract my accounts receivable from my net income to get my bank statement to balance?

ArcSine
Jun 8, 2009, 03:09 PM
You'll need to fill out the picture a bit further to really get a good answer, but in the meantime, try pursuing this idea:

Starting with your net income, deduct your end-of-period receivables and add your beginning-of-period receivables, which will restate your net profits into more of a 'cash basis' number. This'll dovetail more closely with the numbers your using in your bank rec work (deposits from customers).

There'll likely be more to it, but maybe this will springboard you off into the right direction.

...it was early and I was full of no coffee...

morgaine300
Jun 10, 2009, 02:38 PM
OP never asked about a cash basis number. S/he asked about balancing a bank statement.

thurd28, receivables and net income do not have anything to do with your bank statement at all. A bank statement is about a bank account, a cash account. It is only related to items that went in and out of that account. Lots of things affect cash that aren't related to A/R and net income.

Here's an online textbook that has a bank reconciliation:
http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter%206.htm#Bank%20reconciliation (http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter%206.htm#Bank%20reconciliation)

ArcSine
Jun 10, 2009, 03:00 PM
I agree that the OP didn't explicitly ask about cash-basis numbers. But from the sketchy info given, I extrapolated what I thought might be going on behind the question:

thurd28 is maybe looking to the PnL to be a 'statement' of the various increases and decreases to the bank account, and trying to square the two (you've heard the standard question: If the net profits were $X last month, shouldn't the bank account have increased by $X?)

It sounded to me like thurd28 was starting to get a whiff of the right track: It's not the PnL's "Sales" that hits the bank account, it's the cash collections from customers. I just suggested something I thought might keep him / her exploring that revelation--back out your end-of-period AR, and add your beg-of-period AR, to turn the PnL's "Sales" into "bank deposits". (Of course you got to do the same dance with AP and expenses.)

Maybe that's what thurd28 had going on, maybe not--I gave it a shot.

Cheers, all!

...it was early and I was full of no coffee...