MONE$Q Trust Accounting makes it easy to perform three-way Trust reconciliations. The goal of a three-way reconciliation is to ensure that the following three balances are equal:  the adjusted Trust account bank statement balance as of the ending date on the IOLTA bank statement; the trust account transaction ledger balance; and the sum of all Contact or Matter level trust accounts.  

To complete a three-way reconciliation, you must first have a copy of your latest IOTLA bank account statement available.

Step 1:

Input Bank Statement Details

When you choose to perform a new reconciliation, you will be prompted to enter the bank statement end date and bank statement ending balance amount from the bank statement associated with the time period you are reconciling (usually it’s the most recent bank statement)

When complete, click Continue to proceed to the next step.

Step 2:

Mapping Transactions

You will see a listing of all Trust transactions from your Transaction ledger in MONE$Q that have not yet been attached to a reconciliation report. These are considered “Uncleared” transactions in MONE$Q

Reviewing each transaction in your IOLTA bank statement, place a check box next to the corresponding transaction in MONE$Q. As you select transactions for inclusion in the reconciliation report, MONE$Q automatically calculates, and updates balances in the Bank Reconciliation Summary panel on the right.

When all transactions from the bank statement have been matched to corresponding transactions in MONE$Q, The Cleared balance in the Bank Reconciliation Summary panel should equal the bank statement ending balance. When this is the case, the Difference line will equal zero. 

When the difference line equals zero, that means that all transactions included on the bank statement have been properly recorded in the MONE$Q Trust accounting system.

If there is a difference between the two balances, you will not be able to complete the reconciliation report until errors are corrected and the balances match. See “Resolving errors” below for help.

Step 3:

Three-way reconciliation

After verifying that all transactions from the most recent IOLTA bank statement have been properly recorded in MONE$Q, the next step will be to verify that the adjusted bank balance equals the MONE$Q Transaction ledger and equals the sum of all Contact or Matter Trust ledgers.

MONE$Q makes this simple by automatically calculating the Adjusted bank balance, adding all remaining “Uncleared” deposits, and subtracting all remaining “Uncleared” disbursements from the Ending statement balance amount.

The Adjusted balance should equal the Transaction ledger balance and the sum total of all Contact and Matter ledgers in the MONE$Q system.

You will know you have successfully completed a three-way reconciliation when the Adjusted bank balance = the Transaction ledger balance = Sum of all Contact or Matter ledgers.  Those totals will all turn Green and the Difference line will equal zero.  If those three balances are not equal, the amounts will be Red

Populating the 'Prepared by' and "Prepared date' fields will show this information on the 3-way reconciliation report.

You can now complete the reconciliation by clicking the “Save & reconcile” button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 4:

Resolving errors

Most errors result from either a typo when entering a transaction amount in MONE$Q OR when a Trust transaction was not manually recorded in the system.

The Difference amount in the Bank Reconciliation Summary panel usually provides a good clue in how to spot or locate the source of the error(s).

Given the tight integration between the MONE$Q Transaction Ledger and the Contact | Matter Ledgers, it is extremely unlikely that those balances would ever become out of sync. If upon closer review those balances do not sync, you should contact Customer Support at (800) 123-1234 to check for possible data corruption errors – again this scenario is unlikely. 

 “Uncleared” transactions in MONE$Q with aging transaction dates (greater than 60 days old) could mean:

• A deposit or disbursement was recorded in MONE$Q, but a physical check was never printed, or a deposit was never actually delivered to the bank
• A check written from the Trust account was never cashed
• A bank processing error has occurred

NOTE: For your protection, once you have completed a reconciliation, MONESQ will not allow you to enter a new trust transaction with a date that falls within a prior reconciliation period.

If needed, download your monthly reconciliation reports by clicking the ellipsis to the right of the reconciliation you need. The 3-way report contains information about the person who prepared the report, with the date completion.