Check the following to help solve your reconciliation problems:

1. Is the bank account you are attempting to reconcile only used for your flexible spending plans? (Are there any other transactions that have taken place that are on the bank statement but not in Fast-Flex Plus?) Try to eliminate the value of any entries from your statement that you know won't be in Fast-Flex Plus.

2. Is the account new, i.e., did you enter a beginning balance of $0 or are there other outstanding deposits and payments? Make certain that the beginning bank balance you enter is correct and only includes transactions that will be recorded in Fast-Flex Plus. Service fees and other entries on the bank statement can also cause reconciliation difficulties if they are not accounted for by Fast-Flex Plus.

3. How many companies are you running through this bank account? Is yours the only one? If not, have you added all companies as per pages 79-80 in the manual?

4. Do the sum of your individual withholdings each pay day equal your deposits? (Fast-Flex Plus automatically aggregates individual paycheck withholdings into a bank deposit total in the reconciliation program.) Each payday, be sure to compare the deposit totals screen (that appears when you update paycheck withholdings) to the amount of cash actually sent to the bank.

5. Use the Report Generator/Reimbursement Checks/Check Register to view the checks that you have marked as having appeared on the bank statement (in the CLR? column). Also, the bank-statement status of individual transactions can be viewed from the Report Generator/Transactions Report/Individual Employee

6. Finally, if you think every transaction that appears on the bank statement has been marked as cleared in Fast-Flex Plus, but you still can't achieve a reconciliation balance, don't beat your head against the wall! Just fudge the "Service and Other Charges" field in the bank reconciliation dialog box as shown on page 85. Life is too short to spend looking for just a few dollars.

The reconciliation feature in Fast-Flex Plus is supposed to help you, not make your life miserable. Whether or not you achieve a reconciliation has no effect on how Fast-Flex Plus functions. (From the feedback we get, most of our customers never use the reconciliation feature at all! Go figure.) But reconciled or not, the program will still keep account balances, print checks, and generate reports just fine.

7. Sometimes the beginning statement balance might be different than what you think it is. For example, if you "practiced" a bank statement reconciliation with pretend data and achieved a balance, that balance amount would be written out to the "*.RCN" file. The best way to be certain that you are starting out with $0.00 is to look at this file. 

Use Windows Explorer and double-click on the C:\Program Files\FFPRO4\*.RCN file or C:\Program Files (x86)\FFPRO4\*.RCN if you are using Windows 7 or later.  Note that "*" in this instance should be replaced with your DOS bank code. For example, if your DOS bank code was "KEY", double-click on the KEY.RCN file. When Windows asks what program should be used to view the file, scroll down and select NOTEPAD.

You'll see a tiny file with the beginning balance and the DOS code. If the beginning balance isn't correct, change it and then save the file as you exit NOTEPAD.