Quick answer
Compare PropertyMe's transactions against your bank statement line by line for the same date range. Look first for missing feed or import transactions, then for unidentified or unallocated receipts sitting in limbo, then check the opening balance is correct. Note the exact difference — that figure usually points straight to the culprit. If it still won't balance, get your bookkeeper or trust accountant involved before month-end.
WHY IT HAPPENS
A reconciliation only balances when three things agree.
Trust accounting works on the principle that your bank balance, your PropertyMe ledger and the sum of every owner and tenant balance all match. When they don't, something has been recorded in one place but not another — a receipt banked but not yet processed, a payment entered twice, money received against no property, or a date sitting just outside the period you're reconciling. The good news is that the size of the difference is a clue, so start there.
HOW TO FIND THE DIFFERENCE
Work through these in order.
- Confirm the date range matches your statementPropertyMe reconciles against a period. Make sure the reconciliation dates line up exactly with the bank statement you're using — a transaction dated the last day of the month can easily fall on the wrong side of the cut-off and throw the whole thing out.
- Look for missing bank-feed or imported transactionsPropertyMe pulls transactions from your bank feed (CBA, NAB, ANZ, Westpac and Macquarie) or from a file you import. Banks sometimes process a transaction a day late, so a payment on your statement may not have reached PropertyMe yet. Check the New Receipts and New Withdrawals lists inside the reconciliation against your statement and manually import anything that's genuinely missing.
- Clear unidentified receiptsAn unidentified receipt is money that has landed in the trust account but hasn't been matched to a property or tenant — usually because the payer used the wrong reference. These sit in a holding area and will hold your reconciliation until you identify who the money belongs to and allocate it.
- Allocate unallocated receiptsAn unallocated receipt has been matched to a party but not yet applied to a specific charge such as rent, water or an invoice. Apply these to the correct charges so the money leaves the holding state and lands where it should in the ledger.
- Check for duplicates and reversalsScan for the same amount appearing twice, or a receipt and a matching reversal that don't cancel cleanly. A single duplicated or double-keyed transaction is a very common reason a reconciliation is out by a round, specific figure.
- Verify the opening balanceIf the account has never reconciled cleanly since setup, the opening balance entered when the account was created may be wrong. This is a common cause of a persistent, unchanging difference — worth checking against the bank balance on your go-live date.
- Isolate the exact difference amountWrite down the precise amount you're out. Search PropertyMe and your statement for that figure — it very often matches a single transaction that's missing, duplicated or on the wrong date, which turns a mystery into a two-minute fix.
Trust accounting is regulated. This guide is general troubleshooting to help you locate a difference — it isn't accounting or compliance advice. Trust-account rules and reconciliation requirements vary by state and are strict, so if you can't balance the account, if you suspect a shortfall, or if a deadline is approaching, speak to your bookkeeper or trust accountant. Don't force a reconciliation to balance with an adjustment you can't explain.
