... Cheques

Reconciling a statement with a cheque book

Two common problems with cheques are that payees don't present them as quickly as expected and they take time to clear.

In relation to debits, this can create two types of query from clients who:

• can't remember issuing a cheque for an amount and query the debit on their current statement; or
• presume the balance displayed on the statement accounts for all the cheques they've written.

In these cases the client believes the balance represents clear (available) funds, spends funds accordingly and ends up having an overdrawn account or insufficient funds to complete a purchase at an EFTPOS terminal.

A statement balance can also be misleading due to cheque credits. Cheque funds may form part of a balance, but may not yet be clear and a client assumes they are.