You should balance your checkbook whenever you receive your monthly bank statement. It's usually on or around the same date each month. However, you can also track your bank balance against your checkbook balance much more often using online banking or other automated sources (ATM, bank by phone, etc).
It's called "balancing" your checkbook.
Bank reconciliation
The process is bank reconciliation.
You should compare your statement from your bank with your expenses and deposits to make sure they are correct. You can use your bank statement to balance your checkbook. Then you should file it with your other monthly bank statements.
You have 595.22 in your account.
Match the closing balance on the previous statement with the beginning balance on the current statement. Record the closing balance from the current statement on the reconciliation worksheet on the back of the current statement. Match the deposit receipts with those on the bank statement. Place all returned checks in numerical order. Compare the amounts of the checks with the amounts on the current bank statement. List all outstanding checks separately on the reconciliation worksheet. Add any interest earned as well as service charges. Compare the checkbook balance with the bank statement balance. If the two do not agree, check your work and then call the bank.
At the end of the month you do a checkbook reconciliation in order to balance your checkbook to ensure that the balance agrees with what the bank says is in your account. You do this by totaling all the checks you wrote for the month, along with any charges the bank has levied such as the cost of writing the checks etc, and deducting them from the previous month's balance. Then you add up all your deposits for the same period, and your checkbook balance should agree with what the bank says you now have in your account. Checks are fast becoming obsolete for most people as they move to on-line banking and are paying their bills electronically.
48.87
The process of comparing a checkbook register with a bank statement is generally called a "bank reconciliation". Assume that you started business on January 1 and have just received your January 31 bank statement. Make a reconciliation worksheet, with the beginning balance equal to the ending balance shown on the January 31 bank statement. Then compare everything in your check register to the items on the bank statement. Check that all January deposits you recorded in the register also appear on your bank statement. Any deposits you made that hasn't "hit" the bank yet is called Deposit in Transit (DIT). Add total DIT to the bank balance, because the bank balance is "short" by that amount. Checks you wrote in January: Compare the check register with the checks that appear as cashed on your bank statement. Any check that is in the register but has not yet been paid by the bank is an "outstanding check". Make a list of all outstanding checks and get a total, Subtract the total of outstanding checks from the beginning bank balance. Then, adjust your check register for fees that the bank deducted or interest the bank paid that you did not record in the register during the month. Record those items on the register to get an adjusted register balance. Finally, put it all together: Bank ending balance + Deposits in transit - Outstanding checks SHOULD = The balance in your checkbook. If your actual checkbook balance does not equal this number, you either made a mathematical error or you missed something in the reconciliation process. Do it again.
In almost all cases, the balance between the check book and bank statement will not match because any transactions that you did using your ATM/Debit Card will not be recorded in your check book. The balance on your bank statement will be accurate and that shows the actual amount of money you have in your account. If you do not use your check book frequently then the entries in it may be old and outdated.
subtract the credit from his checkbook balance.
Since your last statement was $ 56.75 and you wrote checks of $ 18.25 (5.00 + 13.25), your account would have reduced to $ 38.40 without any deposits. So in order to have a checkbook balance of $ 87.37, you would have had to deposit (87.37 - 38.40) or $ 48.87 into the account.---The procedure for balancing your checkbook is to take the statement balance, add any deposits not listed on the statement, and subtract any checks not listed. In this case :56.75 + 48.87 - 5.00 - 13.25 would give the 87.37 figure shown in the checkbook.