The habit that makes the audit a non-event
Fellow Knight here. Reconciliation sounds like accountant jargon, but it's a plain idea: make the council's books agree with the bank. Every month, the money the records say you have should match the money the bank says you have. When it does, you're fine. When it doesn't, you found a problem early — which is the entire point.
Councils that reconcile monthly breeze through the year-end audit. Councils that don't spend August reconstructing a year from a checkbook.
You take three things — the bank statement, the Financial Secretary's ledger (money in), and the Treasurer's records (money out) — and confirm they all tell the same story. Deposits match receipts, checks match vouchers, and the ending balance matches the statement. Differences get explained, not ignored.
The two-officer design
KoC deliberately splits the money across officers: the Financial Secretary records what comes in, the Treasurer holds and disburses the funds, and the Trustees verify the two agree. Reconciliation is where that separation pays off — the man recording the money isn't the man holding it, so the match between them is meaningful.
How to reconcile, monthly
The bank is the objective record. Pull the statement for the period — that's your source of truth for what actually moved.
Every deposit on the statement should correspond to receipts the FS recorded (dues, donations, fundraisers). A deposit with no record — or a recorded receipt that never hit the bank — is a flag.
Every check or withdrawal should trace to an approved voucher. A check with no voucher behind it is exactly what the controls exist to catch.
After accounting for outstanding (uncashed) checks and deposits in transit, the adjusted ledger balance should equal the statement balance. If it ties, you're reconciled. If not, find the gap before you move on.
The goal is for 'are the books right?' to always be answerable with 'yes, as of last month.' A council in that state has no audit dread, clean budget actuals, and a handoff the next Treasurer can actually trust.
Common mistakes
Twelve months of un-reconciled transactions isn't a reconciliation — it's an investigation. Do it monthly and the audit is a formality.
A $4 difference you 'don't have time to chase' is often the visible edge of a real error. Tie out to the penny or note why you can't.
A check written but not yet cashed makes the ledger and statement disagree legitimately. Track outstanding items rather than 'fixing' the balance to match.
The Trustees verify the reconciliation for the same reason they run the audit — the officer holding the money shouldn't be the only one confirming it's right.
How DuesSync handles this
DuesSync makes reconciliation continuous instead of annual: import the bank statement (CSV), and transactions auto-classify and match against the budget line by line. Dues receipts post automatically when members pay, vouchers carry their own approval trail, and the #1295 audit reads the same reconciled data — so the Trustees confirm a match that's already been maintained all year, not one assembled the week it's due.
Built by a Financial Secretary
Stop running this by hand.
DuesSync runs your council's dues collection end to end — online payments, automatic notices, reconciliation, and the audit trail.
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