One financial necessity that is imperative to keeping your accounts in check is of course balancing your checkbook. But who has the time? And now, with online banking becoming so popular, where is the need to keep your register meticulously organized? Beyond all of these things, balancing a checkbook can be downright boring! With all of these nagging negativities, Americans are finding it easier and easier to keep from balancing their checkbook. Below are reasons why you should keep your checkbook updated and ways to keep up with it all.

Why You SHOULD Do It

There area several reasons why you should balance your checkbook. Even though you may have online banking, balancing your checkbook against what the online banking transaction says will give you an even closer understanding of exactly how much you have in the bank. Also, banks make mistakes, regardless of how rare they are. Keeping up with your own transactions with your register in ink can help prove your case should something go wrong with your bank account.

How You Balance Your Checkbook

Deborah Fowles, a Financial Planning writer for About.com, offer several tips on how to reconcile your checkbook. The first step she urges to begin with is reconciling checks. This works by making sure that there that you can account for all the checks you’ve written and can determine whether or not they have cleared the bank yet. Make sure that the bank and your register have the same amount listed for the check number and that there aren’t any transposed numbers or mistakes.

Then, you should make sure that your deposits are printed on the bank statement. Sort through deposit slips, pay stubs and ensure that the bank is reporting and accepting all of the deposits that you have made.

Next is the hard part: Reconciling ATM withdrawals and purchases made with your debit card. For most people, it is easy to forget to record these transactions and many people throw away the receipts. This can be a fatal flaw when you are trying to stay on a budget. Not paying attention to the purchases that you make with plastic allows a huge hole to form in the budget, creating leaks that may be hard to find.

There are forms that should be coming from your bank that will help you balance your checkbook. Regardless of the presence of online banking or other tools, keeping a paper record of your banking transactions is very important.