Practical guide
How to reconcile a bank account with Yardi Breeze exports
Bank reconciliation is a controlled comparison, not a hunt for a single matching balance. The goal is to explain timing differences, find actual errors, and preserve a worksheet another reviewer can follow.
Define the account and cutoff
Choose one bank account and one statement ending date. Record the bank’s ending balance and the book balance for the same cutoff. Confirm that the export covers enough days around the period end to identify items that clear just before or after it. Mixing accounts or cutoff dates creates differences that no matching algorithm can solve.
Download both sides yourself
Export the relevant Transaction Register or detailed activity using standard Yardi Breeze® report controls. Separately download transaction activity from the bank portal as CSV or another supported file. Keep original copies. A manual-export process avoids sharing bank or property-management credentials and gives the reviewer a stable record of exactly what was compared.
Normalize with care
Banks and accounting exports use different headings, date formats, and sign conventions. Convert dates consistently and decide whether deposits are positive and withdrawals negative. Check parenthesized negatives, currency symbols, commas, and separate debit/credit columns. Verify the first and last few rows after conversion. A sign reversal can make every row look unmatched even though the underlying data is complete.
Match exact items first
Start with transactions having the same date and amount. Exact matches are the clearest and reduce the search space. Do not consume duplicate amounts arbitrarily: two rent deposits for the same amount on the same date may need descriptions or references to pair correctly. Preserve links between matched bank and book rows so the review can be reproduced.
Allow ordinary clearing delays
Next, look for the same amount within a narrow date window, such as three days. Checks, ACH payments, and card settlements often post after their book date. When several candidates exist, compare normalized description tokens or references, and leave ambiguous cases for a person. A fuzzy match should explain why it was proposed instead of quietly declaring success.
Handle bulk deposits separately
A bank may show one ACH deposit while the books show several tenant receipts. Search for a small group of unmatched book deposits whose sum equals the bank amount within the date window. Cap the number of candidate rows and the size of a proposed group; unrestricted subset matching can be slow and can produce coincidental combinations. Every proposed split should list its component transactions for review.
Identify, do not erase, exceptions
Unmatched bank items can be missing book entries, bank fees, interest, duplicate charges, or activity from the wrong account. Unmatched book items may be outstanding checks, deposits in transit, voids, or posting errors. Opposite-sign transactions on the same date can signal a reversal or returned payment. Flag these as possible explanations. Do not automatically delete, reverse, or post anything.
Build the reconciliation equation
Begin with the bank statement ending balance. Add deposits in transit and subtract outstanding checks to reach adjusted bank balance. Compare that with the book balance after any approved book adjustments. Surface the remaining difference prominently. A zero difference is useful evidence that the listed items explain the cutoff, but it does not prove that every transaction was authorized or correctly classified.
For trust accounts, add the third side
A conventional bank-to-book comparison is only two-way. Trust-account review may also require comparison with the total of individual owner, tenant, or beneficiary ledgers. Requirements and record formats vary by jurisdiction and change over time. Consult the current regulator materials and qualified advisers for the account. Do not assume a generic bank reconciliation alone satisfies a trust-account duty.
Preserve a reviewer-friendly package
Keep the statement cutoff, account identifier, adjusted bank calculation, book balance, outstanding items, deposits in transit, proposed matches, exceptions, preparer, and review date together. Use a clear worksheet name and list outstanding checks by date, payee, number, and amount when those fields exist. Retain source documents according to your applicable policy and rules.
Do not force a zero
A remaining difference is information. Record it, investigate it, and carry it visibly if it cannot be resolved before the review deadline. Plug entries, altered dates, and unsupported journal adjustments may make a worksheet equal while making the underlying records less reliable. Require a description, supporting document, approver, and posting reference for every book adjustment that comes out of the reconciliation. Re-run the worksheet after approved changes so the final records reflect the actual ledger rather than a temporary spreadsheet override.
Review before relying on it
Investigate stale outstanding items, unusually large reconciling differences, recurring bank fees, negative beneficiary balances, and unexplained transfers. Compare the final worksheet with the source exports and obtain the required approval or signature. Software can accelerate mathematical comparison, but it cannot decide whether an item was authorized or whether your records comply with a particular rule.