What should I do with Uncashed Transactions from Previous Years?

When reconciling Scribe to the bank statement via Bank/Reconcile, you may encounter transactions listed from previous financial years, some of which might no longer be necessary. Simply ticking them off might be tempting but can lead to the bank reconciliation not balancing.

Here's how to handle uncashed entries from prior years:

Transactions Expected to be Cashed in the Current Year

It's quite common to have unpresented items at the year end. If this is the case, Scribe will display these entries in the bank reconcile screen in the new year. If these entries are correct to be here, they can be left in the list until they appear on the statement and can then be ticked off. Ensure you tick them off in the current year, not the year they're associated with.

Zero (£0.00) Transactions

These are likely entries that have been zeroed as they're no longer required on Scribe, for example, a duplicate entry. If you see a £0.00 entry appearing in the bank reconciliation screen, you can simply tick it off so that it no longer appears in the list. The date at which this is done doesn't matter, and it will have no effect on the bank reconciliation.

Transactions Cancelled and Paid via Another Method

If there are entries for cheques that were sent but never cashed in the prior year and will now be paid in the current year by a replacement cheque/BACS, a couple of entries are needed. You will first need to create a cancelling entry in the current financial year. The replacement payment can then be added as a new payment entry in the normal way. When this payment is cashed, tick off the original entry, the negative correcting entry, and the replacement entry. The first two will net off against each other. 

Transactions No Longer Required

Transactions entered in the current year that are no longer needed can simply be zeroed off. However, for entries that are outstanding from previous years, it's not that straightforward since they would have been included in the year-end balances of the previous year. You will therefore need to create a cancelling entry. When you go to Bank/Reconcile, you'll see the original entry and the corresponding negative entry. Tick both off to remove them from the list. Since they match each other off, there will be no effect on the bank balance.