What Is an Outstanding Check? Outstanding Checks 101

Banks often require customers to pay monthly account fees, check printing fees, safe‐deposit box rental fees, and other fees. Unrecorded service charges must be subtracted from the company’s book balance on the bank reconciliation. The Vector Management Group’s bank statement on page 120 includes a $20 service charge for check printing and a $50 service charge for the rental of a safe‐deposit box. To reconcile outstanding checks with your bank statement, compare the checks issued but not yet cleared with the information provided on the statement, ensuring that both records align. On your reconciliation sheet, outstanding checks are often subtracted from your balance per bank because these withdrawals have not yet happened but are simply a timing matter. The term outstanding checks refers to those checks that have been recorded by a company as being written, but not yet cleared and posted to the account’s statement by the company’s bank.

This can help prevent any unnecessary NSFs if the payee decides to cash the check at a later date. Before writing off an outstanding check, you should make an attempt to contact the payee and resolve the issue, as the check represents a liability that the business owes. However, if these attempts are unsuccessful and a certain period has passed (usually a few years, depending on local laws), the check may be considered “stale” and can be written off. When all differences between the ending bank statement balance and book balance have been identified and entered on the bank reconciliation, the adjusted bank balance and adjusted book balance are identical.

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The interest revenue must be journalized and posted to the general ledger cash account. In the journal entry below, cash is debited for $18 and interest revenue is credited for $18. An outstanding check refers to a check that has already been issued to the recipient. With this in mind, it can take as long as six months to get an outstanding check withdrawn from your account. This is because most banks will cash checks up to six months after they have been cashed.

• If you have further questions you would like answered, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us directly.
• On your reconciliation sheet, outstanding checks are often subtracted from your balance per bank because these withdrawals have not yet happened but are simply a timing matter.
• After receiving the bank statement, therefore, the company prepares a bank reconciliation, which identifies each difference between the company’s records and the bank’s records.
• Outstanding Checks are all un-cashed disbursements issued by the City over the past three years.
• The final transaction listed on the Vector Management Group’s bank statement is for $18 in interest that has not been accrued, so this amount is added to the right side of the following bank reconciliation.

An outstanding check remains a liability of the payer until such time as the payee presents the check for payment, which then eliminates the liability. When a business writes a check, it deducts the amount from the appropriate general ledger cash account. If the funds have not been withdrawn or cashed by the payee, the company’s bank account will be overstated and have a larger balance than the general ledger entry.

Bank Reconciliation

Last, outstanding checks might have an impact on management of the cash flow. Professional accountants and bookkeepers deal with outstanding checks during reconciliation, a time where they are balancing their ledgers as they approach closing the books for the month. Since the Vector Management Group paid Ad It Up $63 more than the books show, a $63 debit is made to decrease the accounts https://goodmenproject.com/business-ethics-2/navigating-law-firm-bookkeeping-exploring-industry-specific-insights/ payable balance owed to Ad It Up, and a $63 credit is made to decrease cash. To adjust your records for outstanding deposits, subtract the outstanding deposit from your books. Instead, you wait until you’ve collected several checks or when you have time. That said, it is possible for the issuing party to request a stop order from their bank, which would void the check that was issued.

Row data in the table window is pulled from the Bank Transactions History
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How to prepare a bank reconciliation?

Your first step should be to use an accounting system that deducts any uncashed checks from your available funds. After that, there are a few more steps you can take to track down an old check. An outstanding check is a check that a recipient fails to deposit.

If they can’t get to the bank, you may want to ask them to return the check to you and you can pay them using another method. Print the Outstanding Check List to view a list of general checks, accounts payable checks or trust checks that have not been cleared. You can Navigating Law Firm Bookkeeping: Exploring Industry-Specific Insights print it by bank and for a specific date range, and you can choose whether to include check details for checks that were distributed to multiple clients/matters or general ledger accounts. Outstanding deposits are a critical part of bank statement reconciliation.