Why Keeping a Check Register Is Important
I always love training new bankers. I’m actually not “training” the new girl at work, but she’s still a lot of fun to be around.
She came into the credit union today in a bit of a panic. She had checked her account and there was a fraudulent charge showing up. She was nervous and worried that her identity had been stolen. She wanted to know what to do. I’ve been through this many times with many customers so I told her what to do and what we would do for her account.
The charge, she said was for an establishment she’s never been to and she wanted to know how it was possible that someone could have charged the card when she had it in her purse the whole time. I tell her that it’s possible she could have swiped the card somewhere that a crook had set up a skimmer to copy the numbers or they could have gotten a picture of the card number. These things are possible, though I know that’s not what had happened in this case.
If someone gets a hold of your debit or credit card, very rarely do they just charge one item. Usually it’s multiple items in rapid succession of each other, and you’ll almost always find a few gas charges on your account. They’re filling up theirs and their buddies’ tanks on your dime. Taco Bell also seems to be really popular with people who steal other people’s debit and credit cards. Go figure.
So I do a little research on the charge and discover that it’s not from the place she never frequents, but rather from a place she visits ALL the time. I tell her the place and she says she hasn’t been there in….then it hits her! She was, in fact, there the day the charge had cleared her account. She had forgotten. She turns a little red and apologizes for the mistake. I smile knowingly – but only because I just like to pick on her anyway – and ask her if she has a check register. She says she does. I ask her if she’s using it. She looks down and sheepishly answers no. I told her she needs to use it; it will help her avoid the panic next time around. Apparently I sounded like her mom.
Sometimes bankers have the unenviable job of sounding like mothers, but keeping a check register is important on many levels. Not just for keeping balances, though that’s important, too. I get a lot of members that tell me they use online banking and that works for them. Yes, but what happens in a situation like this where you forget that you used the card at a certain place and freak out because you think you’ve lost your card? Or, the reverse where you don’t pay any attention to your charges and you may actually have fraudulent charges on the account. Having a register where you write down your transactions can help you monitor that. Keep in mind that most banks only allow you 60 days to dispute an item, so if you miss something from three months ago, to bad because you’re probably not going to get it back. It’s important to keep up with your account.
The other reason that you want a register is because there’s a difference in how your transactions will post. If you use your card as debit and enter your four-digit pin number, it usually posts to your account right away. I only know of a few who don’t post them right away. But, if you use your card as credit and sign for it, then it can take a few days to show up on your online banking. The reason is that it all depends on when the merchant batches out their credit files and sends them off for payment. Some go through the process every night and post them right away. Others may go every week. But, they have 60 days to post a transaction so if you haven’t written it down and they don’t take it out until 45 days later, it can cause some damage to your account if you’re not expecting it.
Ok, so how many of you out there have check registers and are actively using them? If you’re not, how come? Have you run into any problems not using one?
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I haven’t used a check register in probably 10 years. I just have my budget where I take out of each category when I spend. At the end of each month I know what I should have left in my account based on what I haven’t spent, it almost always matches what is in my account. If it doesn’t balance I don’t do anything, and somehow it ends up balancing itself in a few months.
Very good advice.
My husband and I haven’t been very good about using a cheque register, since most of our transactions are electronic (we write about 10 cheques a year). I have finally started keeping a spreadsheet in which I put all transactions, even if I can’t remember the exact amount (with a note beside it to check the amount). But even with that, I saw a petrol station transaction that I didn’t recognise and it took a 10 minute conversation between me and hubby to finally figure out that he had to get oil & petrol for the lawn mower and didn’t have any cash. It was a relief to figure it out. In all fairness to hubby, he had given me the receipt as soon as he got back but it just didn’t make it from where he handed it to me to my desk so it could be put into the spreadsheet.
In future, we plan to keep up with our spreadsheet cheque register, but we still have to remember to put everything in it.
Great post!! I never used to keep a register until a couple months ago. I would always just check my online banking and as long as everything was okay, I wasn’t worried.
Why did I start keeping a register? One — so I could get a better idea of how/why I’m spending. And two — because I recently started work in the claims dept at a bank, and I take calls ALL DAY LONG from people who have issues with debit/ATM/ACH transactions. It’s not just fraud, but things like double-postings, items posting for the wrong amts, items not posting for months after the intial charge was made, credits not showing up by the time promised, etc.
Luckily, none of this has happened to me (that I know of anyway, because I never kept a register before…). The only thing bugging me now is a 50 cent charge I made with a checkcard at a parking garage, that never showed up. I contacted the garage and they said it could take a few days to post, but it’s been weeks now. But at least I’m aware of it and it’s recorded in my register, so it won’t be a surprise when it does show up.
BTW, I don’t keep a paper register. I keep an Excel budget, which I purchased from the fine folks at YNAB.com . (No I don’t work for them, I just love how organized I feel about my finances since I started keeping that register.)
Since I started working at the claims dept, I tell all my friends, family and customers why it is so important to keep a register. Again, great post!!
Thanks! It really doesn’t matter to me how people keep a register so long as they do it – for all the reasons you mentioned!
BTW – a merchant has 60 days to submit their tickets to their banks for posting. After 60 days, if they try to post it, you can technically dispute it as a stale-dated item. I don’t see too many waiting that long, though for that very reason. Even still, if your $.50 doesn’t show up for a little while, I wouldn’t be too worried. And like you said, you’ve got it in your register, so it should be alright.
Excellent advice. I work for a bank myself and I’m suprised by the number of people who rely solely on thier online banking. One problem with online banking is it doesn’t always reflect your true balance. For example, you write aunt Ethyl a check for $150. Aunt Ethyl stuffs it in her purse and forgets all about it for 4 months. Your online balance is showing that you have more money then you really do and you decide to go on a little shopping spree. Meanwhile, aunt Ethyl tries to deposit your check and it bounces due to non-sufficient funds. You then get charged NSF fees.
I also highly recommend using carbon copy checks. How many times have you written a check and forgot who you wrote it to and for how much?
@ Mocha – Well, I’m pretty anal retentive when it comes to my records these days because of the trouble I experienced when I was younger, so it doesn’t matter either way to me. I get free checks so I go with the carbons, but I’m cheap and wouldn’t pay extra for them if I didn’t get them free. What really gets my goat though, is when someone comes into the credit union because they were charged and overdraft fee when they checked their account and had money. Well, they had money before they spent it and now they’ve spent more then they originally had. Keeping a register will help avoid those problems all together.
So, how long have you been in banking?
Oh I so know what you mean. I work in the drive-up and just yesterday I had someone ask me if I could just give them a “pass” on the overdraft fee. When I told her I didn’t have the authority to make that decision and that she would have to go inside and talk to a supervisor, she got mad and sped off. This lady has a history of NUMEROUS overdraft problems and she knew that she’d already used up all her “free passes”. We take so much abuse from people who can’t manage their finances.
I’ve been in banking for 2.5 years so far.