Reconcile and tax

Two pages that answer the questions an accountant asks: does the money agree, and what do we owe.

Reconcile

Reconcile opens on every account you hold money in — tills, bank accounts, mobile money — with three things on each row: what your books say, what the last statement said, and whether they agree.

Whatever is out of step sorts to the top. Each row also says when it was last checked.

The full way: matching line by line

Reconcile on an account is the proper job:

1. Enter the statement's ending balance and its date. The beginning balance fills itself in from the last time you reconciled this account.
2. Add the service charge and any interest earned, if the statement shows them.
3. Tick off each transaction that appears on the statement. The difference at the top moves towards zero as you go.
4. When the difference is zero, complete it. Every ticked transaction carries a permanent reconciled mark in your books from then on.

If you are interrupted, the session waits for you — reopening the account offers to carry on where you stopped.

A difference that will not close

Something on the statement is not in your books (record it), something in your books is not on the statement yet (leave it unticked — it has not cleared), or an amount was typed wrong (fix it on the transaction itself).

The short way: just log it

For a mobile money line with nothing to match line by line, Just log it records what the statement said and tells you the difference. It changes nothing in your books; it writes down what the statement said, so the next reconcile starts from a known point.

What has been checked lists every balance recorded, and whether it agreed.

Tax

Tax shows what you owe for a period and what is not right yet.

The words come from your own country: a Ugandan business sees VAT at 18% with withholding, a Kenyan one sees VAT at 16%. What your revenue authority calls it is what this page calls it.

Across the top: the tax you charged customers, the tax you paid on purchases, the net between them, and anything withheld. Underneath, what you owe, with the return set out line by line the way the authority asks for it.

Before you file

Anything not yet right is listed under Before you file — entries with no tax treatment set, categories nobody has classified, missing details. Where it is a category, the link takes you straight to Categories to settle it.

Filing

1. Prepare it freezes this period's figures, so what you file and what you keep agree even if somebody records something later.
2. File with your revenue authority as you normally do — SBB does not send it for you. (In Uganda, invoice-by-invoice fiscalisation is EFRIS, which is a different thing.)
3. Mark as filed, with their reference if you have one.

Reopen unfreezes a period if something has to change. What you already filed with the authority is untouched — this is your record of it.

Export downloads the period as a spreadsheet for your accountant or for typing into a portal.

What you have filed lists every period, its status and what it came to.

Where the figures come from

Only confirmed entries count. Anything still waiting for review is left out until you confirm it, which is why Before you file is worth clearing first.