19 August 2025
Reconciling On-Chain Balances with a Club Spreadsheet
Where treasurers typically find discrepancies between blockchain snapshots and ledger entries — and how to resolve them before board review.
Reconciliation is the step where documentation projects succeed or stall. The blockchain is authoritative; the spreadsheet is human. Gaps between them are normal and explainable.
Frequent causes of mismatch
Unrecorded network fees. Outbound transfers deduct fees from the sending wallet. Treasurers sometimes log the recipient amount but not the fee, leaving the ledger slightly high.
Internal test transactions. A small send to verify an address before a larger transfer often goes unrecorded. On-chain it remains visible forever.
Timing differences. A snapshot taken at midnight UTC may not match a ledger closed at Korean business hours. Agree on snapshot time before comparing.
Stablecoin decimal precision. Some spreadsheets round to two decimal places while the chain stores more. Small cumulative differences appear over many transactions.
Resolution approach
Export a complete transaction list from your watch-only wallet for the review period. Sort by date. Walk through each entry against the ledger line by line. Mark matched pairs, flag orphans on either side, and write a one-sentence explanation for each orphan.
When to escalate
Discrepancies exceeding 1% of total reserves, or any unexplained outbound transfer, should be raised with the full board before attestation proceeds. Documentation can note unresolved items, but it cannot make them disappear.
Our proof-of-reserve binder includes a variance appendix for exactly this purpose.