Why Balancing Your Checkbook Is a Good Idea
In this world of instantly checking your bank balance by internet or cell phone, the idea of balancing one’s account seems quaint, a relic from the past. Yet there are some compelling reasons to do this on a monthly basis, when your bank statement comes out.
First of all, balancing one’s bank account is easy to do. Use a computer program. There are commercial ones you can buy and there is even an open source program that will help you manage your money and you don’t have to pay for it. If you like it, give them a donation. In one of these programs, you record all your transactions. When your bank statement comes, you tell the program you want to balance the account and it allows you to check off all the transactions-income and out-go. While balancing by hand took fifteen minutes, using a computer program takes seconds if you are careful about recording things accurately. So difficulty is not an excuse any more.
Secondly, the people who run banks are only human. If you balance your books regularly, then you know when a mistake has been made. For example, if you still write checks, the bank may misread what you have written and charge a different amount from what you wrote down. Or, you might make a mistake on your addition for a deposit and the bank may record a different amount of money from what you thought you had.
Also, people write checks to you for any reason and the check bounces, by balancing your books you will know exactly what that has cost you. And, sometimes the bank may charge you a fee by mistake. If you balance your books every month, you’ll be able to see the problem and correct it before it costs you a lot of money. Finally, by balancing your books, you will be better able to identify fraud.
It’s not hard to balance your bank accounts and the information you get will give you peace of mind.
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