How often should I reconcile my rental bank account?

Every month, as soon as the statement is final. Small errors are easy to find within a month and hard to find after a year.

What is a deposit in transit?

Money you recorded as deposited that the bank has not posted yet, often because it came in on the last day of the month. You add it to the bank balance in that month's reconciliation.

Do I need a separate reconciliation for each property?

Yes, if each property has its own bank account, which it should when each building is in its own LLC.

Bank Reconciliation for Rental Property

A bank reconciliation proves that your books and your bank agree. Take the bank statement's ending balance, add deposits the bank has not posted yet, subtract checks that have not cleared, and the result must equal your book balance after you record any fees, interest or returned payments the bank shows. If they do not match, the difference tells you where to look.

Why bother every month

Rental books go wrong in small ways: a rent payment recorded twice, a bounced payment never reversed, a bank fee nobody booked, a check to a vendor that was never cashed. One month of these takes ten minutes to find. Twelve months of them take a weekend, and some cannot be found at all because the tenant moved out.

The IRS lists deposit information, canceled checks and account statements among the records that support a business's income and expenses, and notes that for most small businesses the business checking account is the main source for entries in the books (IRS, What kind of records should I keep). A reconciled account is how you know those entries are complete.

The items that cause differences

Item	Where it shows first	What to do
Deposit in transit	Your books	Add to the bank balance; it posts next month
Outstanding check	Your books	Subtract from the bank balance; follow up if old
Bank fee	The bank	Record it in your books
Interest earned	The bank	Record it in your books
Returned rent payment	The bank	Reverse the rent in your books and charge it back to the tenant
Error	Either	Correct it where it happened

Items that show first in your books adjust the bank side. Items that show first at the bank adjust the book side. Keeping that split straight is most of the skill.

The steps

Download the statement for the month, and wait until it is final (usually the first few days of the next month).
Tick off every deposit on the statement against a deposit in your books. Rent payments with unique amounts or memos are much faster to match.
Tick off every withdrawal and cleared check against your books.
List what is left in your books and not on the statement: deposits in transit and outstanding checks.
List what is left on the statement and not in your books: fees, interest, returned payments, anything you forgot. Record each one now.
Do the math on both sides. They must be equal to the cent.
Save the statement and the reconciliation report together, and lock the month so nobody edits it later.

A worked month

Example a made-up 20 unit building, March. The bank statement ends at $41,862.50. Bank side: add a $1,425.37 rent deposit from unit 4B made on March 31 that the bank posted April 1, and subtract two checks not yet cashed, $640.00 to a plumber and $380.00 to a landscaper. Adjusted bank balance: $41,862.50 plus $1,425.37 minus $1,020.00 equals $42,267.87. Book side: the ledger shows $42,254.87. The statement shows $25.00 of interest and a $12.00 wire fee that were never booked. Adjusted book balance: $42,254.87 plus $25.00 minus $12.00 equals $42,267.87. Both sides agree, so March is done.

In April, the $1,425.37 deposit and the two checks should appear on the statement. If the $380.00 check still has not cleared by May, call the landscaper: an uncashed check is a bill you still owe, and a check that is lost may need to be voided and reissued.

When it will not balance

Find the difference between the two adjusted balances first. Its size is a clue.

The difference equals one transaction: look for something missing on one side.
The difference is twice a transaction: something was entered as money in when it was money out, or the other way round.
The difference divides evenly by 9: often two digits swapped, like $1,350 typed as $1,530 (a $180 gap, and 180 divided by 9 is 20).
Last month did not balance either: fix the earlier month first, since every month starts from the one before.

Example a made-up owner is $2,700 off. Rent for unit 9C is $1,350, and the ledger shows two $1,350 payments from 9C but the bank shows one. The tenant's payment was recorded once from the bank and once again by hand. Deleting the duplicate closes the gap exactly.

Returned rent payments

A bounced or reversed payment is the item most often missed. When the bank pulls the money back, your books still show the tenant as paid. Record the reversal the same day: the bank goes down, and the tenant's balance goes back up. Check your lease and your state's rules before adding any returned payment fee.

How DoorKeeping handles it

In DoorKeeping each property's LLC has its own bank account and ledger, so you reconcile one building at a time. Tenants pay your own bank directly, and each tenant gets a memo like 12B SMITH and an exact amount with its own cents, so every rent deposit is easy to tell apart on the statement. Bank feeds match each deposit to the right rent charge automatically, so you or your AI app only review what is left over.

Sources

IRS, What kind of records should I keep, read Oct 29, 2026

Questions

How often should I reconcile my rental bank account?: Every month, as soon as the statement is final. Small errors are easy to find within a month and hard to find after a year.
What is a deposit in transit?: Money you recorded as deposited that the bank has not posted yet, often because it came in on the last day of the month. You add it to the bank balance in that month's reconciliation.
Do I need a separate reconciliation for each property?: Yes, if each property has its own bank account, which it should when each building is in its own LLC.