You open the banking app, see a healthy balance and decide you can afford the new tool. Then the cheques you wrote last week clear, and the balance is not what you thought.
The number on your screen and the money you really have are not the same number. The gap is widest right before payroll, which is when you most need to know.
Free: the Get Paid Faster course. A short walkthrough from a confirmed sale to a paid invoice, no retyping. Start the course
What the gap costs you
A cash surprise rarely arrives with warning. It shows up as a payroll you scramble to cover or a bill you pay late, when the signs were in your records three weeks earlier.
Why the numbers differ
Outstanding cheques, deposits that have not cleared and payments that are recorded but not yet in the bank all sit between your records and your balance. If you only look at the bank, you only see half of that.
The process: four steps from the bank number to the real one
1. List what has not cleared
Write down every cheque you have issued and every deposit you are waiting on.
Example: “Two cheques out, one customer payment in transit.”
Pro tip: Check the list against last week’s so nothing falls off.
2. Match each bank line to an invoice or a bill
For every transaction on your statement, find the invoice or bill it belongs to.
Example: “Deposit of 1,150 matches invoice 0047.”
Pro tip: Work in date order so you spot gaps sooner.
Free: the Get Paid Faster course. A short walkthrough from a confirmed sale to a paid invoice, no retyping. Start the course
3. Chase anything that does not match
An unmatched line is either a missing record or a mistake. Find out which before it compounds.
Example: “Unknown withdrawal on the 14th: it was a supplier bill we never entered.”
Pro tip: Do this while the memory is fresh. A week-old mystery is easy to solve; a quarter-old one is not.
4. Write down the real number
Your cash position is the bank balance plus what is coming in, minus what is going out. Write it in one place.
Example: “Bank 8,200, plus 1,150 in transit, minus 900 in cheques: 8,450.”
Pro tip: Check the number against your next payroll before you decide on anything.
Where this runs
The four steps work on a spreadsheet. In the business system we set up for clients (Odoo Community), you register each payment against its invoice or bill so paid and unpaid are always visible, and you compare that against your statement each week by hand. Automatic matching of bank lines is an Odoo Enterprise feature, not part of Community. The process is the point. The tool just keeps it going when you are busy.
Your next step
Do the check once this week, before you make any purchase decision. If you want to see how invoices and payments connect, the free Get Paid Faster course covers it.
Free: the Get Paid Faster course. A short walkthrough from a confirmed sale to a paid invoice, no retyping. Start the course