bank charges on the statement are consistently double the GL fee account because both the feed and a manual journal...

TL;DR

Exactly double is the fingerprint of duplication, not of a fee increase: the bank charges once, but the books record it twice, once when the bank feed creates the fee transaction during reconciliation and once when someone posts the month-end fee journal from the statement. Pick one authoritative path. For most teams the feed entry, created while matching the statement line, is the better record because it carries the exact date and amount; the manual journal then stops, and its historical duplicates are reversed month by month. Alternatively keep the analysed fee journal (which splits fees by type) and train the rec process to match statement fee lines against that journal instead of creating new transactions. Either way, reconcile the fee account to the statement monthly so a third recording path cannot creep in.

bank charges on the statement are consistently double the GL fee account because both the feed and a manual journal record them

Use this when

• The GL bank charges or fee account runs at roughly twice the bank's actual charges for the period.
• Fees are visible both as individual feed-created transactions and inside a monthly summary journal.
• The pattern repeats every month at a similar ratio.

Not for this skill when

• Fees rose because the bank changed its tariff or volumes grew. Compare against the bank's fee schedule before assuming duplication.
• Only one month is affected by a one-off duplicate journal. Reverse that journal; no process redesign is needed.

Steps

1. Total the actual charges from the bank statements for a sample month, from the statement lines themselves. Verify: the bank-proven fee total for the month is established
2. List every GL posting to the fee account for that month with its source: feed-created, journal, or integration. Verify: the two recording streams are separated and each stream's total is known
3. Choose the authoritative stream with the finance owner, favouring the one with better analysis by fee type if that analysis is used. Verify: one stream is designated and the decision is documented
4. Reverse the duplicate stream's postings for the affected months in the current period, referencing the surviving entries. Verify: the fee account for each corrected month equals the bank-proven total
5. Change the procedure and, if possible, the system defaults so the retired stream cannot recur, then reconcile fees monthly. Verify: the next month's fee account ties to the statement on first pass

Variant phrasings

bank charges double GL fee account feed and manual journal both record

The exact-double duplication symptom.

bank fees recorded twice bank feed reconciliation journal duplicate

The two-stream phrasing.

bank fee account reconciliation statement monthly duplicate fix

The monthly control search.

Compatibility: Bank feed reconciliation in Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite and Sage, where statement lines can create transactions, alongside manual month-end journals.

Why it happens

Two honest processes collide: the bank rec workflow invites the operator to create a transaction for every unmatched statement line, and the month-end checklist separately asks for a fee journal from the same statement. Each process sees the fees as unrecorded because the other process's entry is coded to a slightly different account name, dated differently, or summarised, so neither recognises the other's work. The result is a fee account at exactly double reality and a bank rec that always ties, because both entries sit on the book side.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Fee analysis by type (service, wire, FX) is the usual reason the journal exists; preserve the analysis by splitting the feed entries instead of reviving the journal.
• Partial duplication happens when only some fees are journalised; compare fee by fee, not just totals.
• VAT or GST on bank fees in some regions needs the journal's tax coding; if the feed path wins, replicate the tax treatment there.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_0KJigJCSPYTukVSnGTnRlA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_0KJigJCSPYTukVSnGTnRlA

Thread query: bank charges on the statement are consistently double the GL fee account because both the feed and a manual journal record them

TL;DR: Exactly double is the fingerprint of duplication, not of a fee increase: the bank charges once, but the books record it twice, once when the bank feed creates the fee transaction during reconciliation and once when someone posts the month-end fee journal from the statement. Pick one authoritative path. For most teams the feed entry, created while matching the statement line, is the better record because it carries the exact date and amount; the manual journal then stops, and its historical duplicates are reversed month by month. Alternatively keep the analysed fee journal (which splits fees by