Outstanding cheques in QuickBooks Online: a guide for Canadian businesses

How to find outstanding cheques

For a live view, open Chart of accounts, select View register on the chequing account, and look for cheques with a blank reconcile status. C means cleared but not yet reconciled; R means reconciled.

1. Open Reconcile. In the current layout it is under Accounting, reached through All apps if it is not pinned. Older layouts put it under Transactions or the Settings gear.
2. Select History by account and choose your chequing account.
3. Open the report for your most recent reconciliation.
4. Read the uncleared section. It lists every cheque and payment that was outstanding as of that statement date.

Clear cheques that have now cleared the bank

If you cannot see a cheque you know has cleared, check that it was recorded against the right account and is not dated after the statement ending date.

1. Open Reconcile, choose the chequing account and enter the ending balance and ending date from your bank statement.
2. Select Start reconciling.
3. Tick each cheque that appears on the statement. Cheques you already matched in Bank transactions are ticked for you.
4. When the difference is 0.00, select Finish now.

Record cheques so they can be cleared later

• Use the Cheque form (+ New, then Cheque) for cheques you write, and type the number from the cheque in Cheque no. so it can be compared with the statement.
• Leave Print later unticked for handwritten cheques. When it is ticked, the number field reads To print and no number is stored until the cheque is printed.
• Pay supplier bills with Pay bills rather than a separate cheque, so the bill closes and the expense is not recorded twice.
• If you hold a US-dollar chequing account, record US-dollar cheques in that account and reconcile it against its own statement, in US dollars. A cheque recorded in the Canadian-dollar account by mistake will sit outstanding in one account and be missing from the other.
• Enter each cheque the day you write it. A cheque that is not in QuickBooks cannot show as outstanding, so your book balance looks higher than the cash you actually have.

Avoid outstanding cheques that are really duplicates

A common source of phantom outstanding cheques is the bank feed. When a cleared cheque downloads into Bank transactions and someone selects Add instead of Match, QuickBooks records it a second time. The added copy is cleared, and your original cheque sits outstanding forever. In the Categorized tab (Posted in the newer layout), undo the added copy and match it to the original cheque.

Stale-dated cheques in Canada

Canadian banks generally treat a cheque as stale-dated once it is more than six months past the date written on it, and they may refuse to cash it. That does not cancel the debt. If you still owe the payee, contact them, stop payment on the old cheque if needed, and issue a new one.

Before you treat a cheque as dead, confirm it has not cleared. Search online banking by cheque number and amount, and look at the cheque images your bank provides. A cheque that cleared at a slightly different amount, or was posted from the bank feed as a new transaction, can look outstanding in QuickBooks when the money has already left the account. Keep a note of each step you take and each attempt to reach the payee.

If the money is no longer owed, or you cannot reach the payee, you have three options.

Voiding or reversing a cheque in QuickBooks Online

An outstanding cheque was never reconciled, so voiding it does not break a past reconciliation. It does change the balances of the period it was dated in.

1. To void: open the cheque, select More at the bottom of the form, then Void, and confirm. If it paid a bill, the bill reopens.
2. To reverse: create a journal entry dated in the current period that debits the chequing account and credits the account your accountant chooses, with the original cheque number in the memo.
3. In your next reconciliation, tick the old cheque and the journal entry together. They offset, so the difference does not change.

GST/HST and unclaimed property

If the original cheque included GST/HST that you claimed as an input tax credit, voiding it in a period you have already filed changes the tax figures for that period. Ask your accountant how to treat it before you void or reverse.

Uncashed cheques owed to someone else may also count as unclaimed property. Rules and programs differ by province: Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, for example, run their own unclaimed property programs, while other provinces have different or no rules. This guide is not legal advice. Your accountant can tell you which rules apply and what records to keep.

Clearing hundreds of cheques at once

Ticking cheques one by one is manageable for a few dozen. For a statement with hundreds, Kyriq reads the bank statement PDF you upload, or cheque images in PDF, JPG or PNG, and extracts each cheque, including handwritten ones, with a confidence score. It compares them with your QuickBooks Online register and groups exact matches for bulk approval.

Duplicates and discrepancies go to Needs Attention, which is where the added-instead-of-matched cheques above usually turn up. Nothing is cleared until an authorized user approves; then Kyriq clears the approved matches in the QuickBooks Online reconciliation, with an audit trail. Kyriq works with QuickBooks Online only, and the trial covers 14 days or 250 cheques with no credit card.