What is the correct way to handle stale dated cheques? We have a couple that were sent to vendors over six months ago and have never been cashed. I do not necessarily want to reverse them, as that will make them outstanding in AP, and for some reason not fathomable to me, the vendor is not complaining. I do not know if they have perhaps since gone out of business or ?

Is there a way to take them out of BR? They are not bothering anything, but I see them each time I go to do a reconciliation, and I do not believe they can even be cashed anymore.

Hi Barb,

That's a nice problem to have...

If you were to Clear or Void a stale-dated cheque, this would not reinstate the monies into your bank balance. This would likely cause a difference in your BankRec balance as compared to the GL bank balance (should you decide to do a journal entry to deal with the GL bank amount).

Others may have a better suggestion, but I think you do need to Reverse the payment (thus indeed making the invoice outstanding again in AP), and then do a Credit note or Adjustment (credit amount on adj detail) in AP to the invoice(s) to make the outstanding balance 0. That way, the bank balance in BankRec does not get incorrectly changed. In either case, you can choose the GL account for the offsetting CR entry that goes with the DR to payables.

As you say, the old cheque is not hurting anything by remaining as outstanding in BankRec and AP, but it will need to be dealt with as I assume you have posted all GL batches and the GL bank balance reflects these stale-dated cheques.