Your POS says one amount. The bank received another. That difference does not automatically mean money is missing.

A processor may subtract merchant fees, hold deposits across dates or include refunds and adjustments. Tips, sales tax, gift cards and physical cash also have different accounting jobs. When only the net bank deposit is recorded as sales, the P&L can lose important information.

One sale can create several pieces

• Gross product sales

• Sales tax collected

• Tips owed or paid to employees

• Gift-card sales or redemptions

• Refunds and discounts

• Merchant-processing fees

• Cash versus card payment

• The net amount deposited by the processor

What good reconciliation does

POS reconciliation connects the sales report to the merchant deposit, physical cash records and QBO. It explains legitimate differences and exposes unexplained ones. This protects Money In and improves Money Out reporting at the same time.

A quick check you can do now

Choose one ordinary business day. Compare the POS total, payment-method breakdown, tips, tax, refunds, processing activity and eventual bank deposit. Do not expect the deposit to equal gross sales. Expect every difference to have an explanation.

How I come in

In monthly QBO bookkeeping, I organize the flow so sales, liabilities, fees and deposits are not collapsed into one misleading number. The purpose is not complicated accounting for its own sake. It is a clean starting point for margin, payroll, cash and profit review.

A calm next step

If POS activity and deposits are creating recurring QBO differences, bring one sales report and its related deposit to the diagnostic. Book a complimentary Review Diagnostic or explore the Calm Cafe System first.

Related foundation: Should You Keep Doing the Bookkeeping Yourself?

Next problem: Will There Be Enough Cash for Payroll?