Incorrectly allocated invoices or bills

This is the most common reason for a discrepancy between your balances. This scenario typically looks like this:

1. Let's say you record an invoice for $20.
2. You then manually enter the payment for the $20.
3. The $20 payment is then also presented via your bankfeed.
4. Instead of matching the bank feed payment to the payment you entered, you allocate the bank feed transaction to an income account, e.g. sales. This will result in an additional $20 in your bank account which should not be there.

To correct this issue, these transactions need to be found, unallocated from the income account, then matched to the payment transaction.

Incorrect opening balance

It's important to record the correct bank account opening balance as at the date you start entering transactions in MYOB Essentials Accounting.

For example if you decide to start entering transactions in MYOB Essentials Accounting from September 2nd onwards, enter the opening balance for your accounts (from a bank statement) as at September 2nd.

To enter an opening balance:

1. Click your business name (in the top-right corner of any page in MYOB Essentials Accounting), then click Accounts list.
2. In the accounts list, find the account you want to enter an opening balance for.
3. Place the cursor in the Opening balance column of the account.
4. Enter the opening balance for this account.
   Note: Enter opening balances as positive numbers. Don't, for example, enter your liability account balances as negative numbers. Enter negative amounts only if accounts truly have negative balances. As a rule, these will be asset accounts that record accumulated depreciation.
5. If you want, click in the Account Name column and edit the name of the account.
6. Click Save to save your changes.

Need to change a previously entered opening balance? See Entering opening balances.

Future-dated transactions

Recording a future-dated transaction will also affect the MYOB Essentials Accounting balance that is displayed on the Dashboard.

To find a future-dated transaction:

1. Go to the Banking menu and click Transaction history.
2. In the Account field, select the appropriate bank account.
3. In the From and To fields, select a date range from today's date to a date in the future (for example 31/12/2020).
4. Click Update.
5. Any future-dated transactions will be displayed in the transactions list. You can then click into the transaction to correct the date and save it.

Missing bank feed transactions

If you have a bank account linked to MYOB Essentials Accounting, it's possible (although quite rare) for bank transactions to be missing.

You can check this as follows:

1. Go to the Banking menu and click Bank transactions.
2. Click Import History.
3. Select the appropriate bank account from the dropdown list and the dates of each bank feed will be displayed. If your bank sends your transactions daily, you should be looking for any gaps in the dates; noting banks don't provide data on weekends. If you find a gap, we suggest you check if there were any transactions on that day on a bank statement or via your bank's own internet banking. If you find any missing transactions, the easiest fix is to enter them manually (via Spend Money/Receive Money or Enter Customer Payment/Enter Supplier Payment) or by exporting the transactions to a QIF file from your online banking and then importing them into MYOB Essentials Accounting.