Explore our new and improved best practices for bank reconciliations

Mar 25, 2026

If there is one accounting task you should not skip, it is completing your bank account reconciliation. When you perform this important task, you ensure bank transactions match those in your accounting records. This critical step can identify fraud, flag bank errors and highlight mistakes; ultimately leading to more accurate accounting records and financial information.

Unfortunately, some audits identify issues with bank reconciliations, including sometimes the failure to perform one at all. The Budgeting, Accounting, and Reporting System (BARS Manual) requires a monthly reconciliation of all bank and investment accounts, no matter whether you report GAAP or cash basis. Make sure you are familiar with BARS requirements for bank reconciliations so that you ensure you comply with them.

To help guide you further, we’ve recently updated our Best Practices for Bank Reconciliations to help you refine and improve your current processes.

What’s new

In the 2026 edition of this resource, you’ll find:

  • New guidance on how to develop a policy over bank account reconciliations; including a robust list of potential policy topics
  • Several new best practices, including one discussing automating the bank reconciliation process. Another suggests small governments might share their bank reconciliation with their board. We’ve also added a best practice for segregating duties so that the bank reconciler cannot perpetrate fraud and conceal it.
  • A new section on how to use banking services to reduce fraud risk, to take some pressure off your reconciliation procedures.
  • New guidance on how to evaluate your bank account structure each year.
  • Guidance for handling stale dated checks, a common question we receive
  • An increased emphasis on reading the bank statement, in addition to reconciling it.
  • Clarified guidance on how to establish a reconciliation frequency
  • An example of a basic bank reconciliation (see appendix A)

These are just a few of the updates made. You can access the newly updated resource by visiting the Resource Library. 

For additional assistance

We hope you find these resources helpful, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us with questions, comments or recommendations for new resources at Center@sao.wa.gov.