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Reconciling your books

Reconciling is confirming that what Swann Retail posted matches what’s actually in your QuickBooks — and that nothing was quietly missed, doubled, or changed. Swann Retail is built so you can prove this, not assume it.

To check a single day against QuickBooks:

  1. On the QuickBooks page, look at Posting evidenceLast posted day tells you sync is current, Open conflicts tells you nothing’s stuck.
  2. Open the accounting feed for that day to see the balanced journal — the totals that should be in your books.
  3. Post the day (or find its earlier post) to get its reference — e.g. SWANN-2026-05-31 — and use View in QuickBooks to open the exact record. Compare it line for line against the accounting feed — Anatomy of a posted day spells out what each debit and credit on that record should be.

Because every posted day carries a date-based reference, you can always search that reference in QuickBooks to find the day it posted — and re-posting a day never creates a duplicate.

Swann Retail will only post a balanced day — debits equal credits. If a day can’t balance (almost always a missing mapping), it’s held, not booked wrong, and listed under Fixing what won’t post as the day didn’t balance. Fix the mapping it points to; the day re-posts on its own at the next sync. See the accounting feed for what a balanced day looks like.

At month-end or before a VAT return, your accountant will want to reconcile a stretch of days at once, not one at a time:

  1. Open the accounting feed for the whole period — it totals every account across the range, so Sales Revenue, VAT Payable and the rest are the figures that should be in QuickBooks for that period.
  2. Confirm Posting evidence shows no open conflicts in the range — a held day is a day that isn’t in QuickBooks yet, so the two won’t agree until it’s cleared.
  3. Compare the feed’s period totals against the same range in QuickBooks. Because each day posts under its own SWANN-… reference, any day that’s missing or doubled stands out by its reference.

The feed is a read-only view of your own books’ shape, not a second live connection — so it’s always safe to open, however often you reconcile.

Swann Retail keeps watching the days it already posted. If one is later edited or deleted in QuickBooks, that’s flagged back to you under Fixing what won’t post:

  • It was edited in QuickBooks — the posted figures no longer match what Swann Retail sent. Decide which is right: put the correct figures back in QuickBooks yourself, or Ignore to keep the QuickBooks version. Swann Retail flags the difference but won’t overwrite the edited entry for you — re-posting the day only re-checks it and reports the drift, it doesn’t amend what’s already in QuickBooks.
  • It was removed in QuickBooks — the entry is gone. Put it back in QuickBooks yourself if it should be there, or Ignore if you deleted it on purpose. Because Swann Retail still has the day on record as posted, re-posting it won’t recreate a deleted entry.

This is the safety net that stops a hand-edit in QuickBooks from silently drifting away from your till figures.

If you’re moving to Swann Retail from another sync — such as Amaka — reconciling the boundary is what keeps you from double-counting. Set your dates at a clean month boundary first (see Already syncing to QuickBooks?), then for the first few days Swann Retail owns:

  1. Confirm each day in QuickBooks has exactly one source — the old sync up to the boundary, Swann Retail from it. A day with two entries means the old sync wasn’t turned off in time.
  2. Compare that day’s accounting feed total against what landed in QuickBooks. They should match to the penny.

Once a few boundary days tie out cleanly, the rest follow the same path automatically.