Stale-dated checks: what to do in your books

Stale-dated checks show up at the year-end bank reconciliation, at the bottom of the uncleared list: a $640 supplier check from March, a final paycheck to an employee who left last November. The reconciliation still balances, because QuickBooks carries them as outstanding. But the bank will probably never pay them now, the people they were written to are still owed the money, and every month they sit there the books say the business has less cash than it does.

This post is about the payer’s side: what a stale check is, the three ways to clear one from the books, the QuickBooks Online entry for each, and the unclaimed property rule that decides where the money ends up. The questions people ask about cashing an old check get short answers from the payer’s side at the end.

What is a stale-dated check?

A stale-dated check is one presented to the bank more than six months after the date written on it. The rule is Section 4-404 of the Uniform Commercial Code, adopted in every state: a bank “is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer’s account for a payment made thereafter in good faith” (UCC §4-404).

That sentence has three consequences for the business that wrote the check:

• The bank may refuse it. After six months, refusing is the bank’s choice.
• The bank may also pay it. A stale check can still clear, and the bank can charge your account for it if it paid in good faith. A check you have written off in the books can come back.
• The debt does not expire with the check. The rule is about the bank’s duty to its customer. It says nothing about whether you still owe the payee, and in most cases you do.

A “void after 90 days” line printed on the check is your instruction, not part of the UCC rule, and banks do not reliably enforce it. It is no substitute for a stop payment.

Why stale checks stay on the reconciliation

When a check is written, QuickBooks takes the amount out of the bank account in the books on that day. The bank takes it out only when the payee deposits it. Until then the check is an outstanding item: the books show less cash than the statement, and the reconciliation accounts for the difference. How the two sides are tied together is in bank reconciliation explained.

An outstanding check that never clears keeps that difference open forever. One is harmless. A reconciliation carrying three years of them is understating cash, and the business has a liability to each payee that the balance sheet does not show anywhere. Year end is the time to clear them, because that is when someone is already reading every line of the outstanding list.

What to do with a stale-dated check, step by step

1. List them. In QuickBooks Online, the reconciliation report for the last month you reconciled lists the uncleared checks and payments as of the statement date. Note every one dated more than six months before it.
2. Confirm none of them cleared. Look for the check number in the bank’s online history and check images. A check that cleared but was never matched in QuickBooks is a different problem: match it, do not reverse it.
3. Contact the payee. Email or call, and keep a record of it. Most stale checks are lost in the mail or forgotten in a drawer. You will need the record later if the money ends up going to the state.
4. Decide which of the three cases it is. The payee wants a new check, the payment was not owed, or the payee cannot be reached. The table below has the entry for each.
5. Stop payment on the original before you reissue. Because a bank may still pay a stale check in good faith, a reissued check without a stop payment can be paid twice. Under UCC §4-403, a stop-payment order lasts six months and can be renewed for six more; an oral order lapses after 14 days unless it is confirmed in writing (UCC §4-403). Your bank’s fee and form apply.

Stale check accounting treatment: the three options

Each option starts the same way: an entry dated when you act, not on the original check date, that puts the money back in the bank account in the books. What it credits depends on why the check is being cleared.

Situation	Entry, dated when you act	Then
Payee found and still owed	Debit the bank account, credit Unclaimed Property Payable	Write the new check from Unclaimed Property Payable
Payment was not owed (a duplicate, or paid another way)	Debit the bank account, credit the account the check was charged to	Nothing; the payment is undone
Payee cannot be reached	Debit the bank account, credit Unclaimed Property Payable	Hold it until the state’s dormancy period ends, then report and pay it to the state
Check was a bill payment in QuickBooks	Debit the bank account, credit Accounts Payable with that vendor on the line	The vendor’s balance goes back up by the check amount; pay it again, or follow one of the rows above

Unclaimed Property Payable is a liability account you add once: Account Type Other Current Liabilities, Detail Type Other Current Liabilities. Using the same account for the payee you found and the payee you could not reach keeps every uncashed check in one place, with the payee and original check number in the memo.

Crediting the expense account, or miscellaneous income, is right only when the money was not owed. If it was owed, those entries turn a debt into profit, and unclaimed property law treats that money as the payee’s, not yours. When a check that was not owed is from a year whose return is already filed, ask the CPA which of the two to credit, since the entry lands in the current year either way.

A worked example

Harbor Supply was paid by check 2214 for $640.00 on March 12, 2026. By December the check has not cleared, the bank confirms it, and Harbor Supply says it never arrived and asks for a new one. On December 18, 2026, the bookkeeper stops payment on check 2214 and records:

Account	Debit	Credit
Checking	640.00
Unclaimed Property Payable		640.00
Total	640.00	640.00

Then writes check 2391 to Harbor Supply for $640.00, charged to Unclaimed Property Payable instead of an expense:

Account	Debit	Credit
Unclaimed Property Payable	640.00
Checking		640.00
Total	640.00	640.00

Unclaimed Property Payable is back to zero, the supplies expense stays in March where it belongs, and the bank shows one $640.00 payment when check 2391 clears. If the bank charged a stop-payment fee, that is a separate bank fee expense.

Why you never delete or edit the original check

Check 2214 is in a reconciled month, and possibly in a year whose return is already filed. Deleting or voiding it changes March: the bank balance QuickBooks shows for a month you already reconciled, and the expense on a year your CPA already used. The next reconciliation then opens with a beginning balance that does not match the last statement. That fault, and how to trace it, is in edit a reconciled transaction.

Voiding in QuickBooks Online does exactly that. Intuit’s article says “voided transactions are zero and show as void in your records” (Void or delete transactions, updated September 7, 2026), and the zero lands in the check’s original period. For a check from a period you have closed, Intuit’s own method is the reversing entry above, dated in the current period (Void a transaction from another period, updated August 5, 2026). Undoing the old reconciliation to void it there is the wrong fix for an old check; when undoing one is the right fix is in undo a reconciliation in QuickBooks Online.

Voiding is fine for a check written in the current month that has not been reconciled yet. Stale checks never are.

Clearing a stale check in QuickBooks Online

Following Intuit’s steps for a transaction from another period:

1. Print the original’s journal. Go to Reports, then Standard reports, and run Transaction List by Date for All Dates. Find the check, select More, then Transaction journal, and print it so you have the accounts it hit.
2. Create the reversing entry. Select + Create, then Journal Entry. Enter today’s date as the Journal date, and enter the accounts in reverse: debit the bank account, credit the account from the table above. Put the payee and the original check number in the memo, then Save.
3. Clear both in the register. Go to Settings, then Chart of accounts, and select View register for the bank account. Find the original check and select the reconcile status column until it shows C for cleared, then do the same for the reversing entry, and Save. If the column is hidden, turn on Reconcile and Banking Status from the gear icon above the Balance column.

The two lines net to zero, so they clear together in the next reconciliation without changing its balance. The monthly process they clear in is in how to reconcile in QuickBooks Online.

Stale payroll checks

A final paycheck that was never cashed is the most common stale check, and the one most often handled wrong. Do not void it in QuickBooks Payroll. Intuit’s paycheck article warns that “if you void a paycheck from a prior quarter or year, amendments will be required” (Edit, delete, or void employee paychecks, updated August 2, 2026), because the void changes the wages and taxes already reported on Form 941 and the W-2. The employee earned the wages; only the check went missing.

• If the employee asks for it, reissue it. Intuit’s steps for a paycheck that is lost or more than six months old are in Replace a lost or expired paycheck (updated August 3, 2026). Intuit asks for a stop payment when the check is lost; put one on an expired check too, since the bank may still pay it.
• If the employee cannot be reached, clear the net pay from the bank account into Unclaimed Property Payable with a journal entry, as in the table, and leave the paycheck itself alone. Intuit’s unclaimed wages article (updated August 5, 2026) lists voiding an unclaimed paycheck as something not to do, says the employer is responsible for reporting the wages and turning them over to the state after a period of time, and says to ask the state agency what that period is.

Payroll liabilities that do not tie out at year end are covered in payroll reconciliation.

Unclaimed property: when the money goes to the state

Every state has an unclaimed property law, and an uncashed check is property the business holds for someone else. When the check has gone a set time with no contact from the owner, the dormancy period, the business must try to reach the owner and, if that fails, report the property to the state and pay it over. Dormancy periods, the owner-contact rules and report due dates are set by each state and differ by type of property, with wages typically on a shorter clock than vendor payments.

Which state. The Supreme Court set the order in Texas v. New Jersey, 379 U.S. 674 (1965): the property goes first to the state of the owner’s last known address in your records, and if there is no address, to the state where the business is incorporated. Later cases, Pennsylvania v. New York (1972) and Delaware v. New York (1993), kept that rule. A business with payees in several states can owe reports to several states.

Where to look it up. The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators keeps a profile for each state, with its dormancy periods, due dates and reporting format, at unclaimed.org/state-reporting. NAUPA’s holder page says “laws and reporting deadlines vary by state” and that “most states require that the report follow the NAUPA standard format” (unclaimed.org/holders). Look up the payee’s state before deciding when to report, not after.

When the report is filed and the money is paid to the state, the entry is a debit to Unclaimed Property Payable and a credit to the bank account. The payee then claims it from the state, not from you. That is the only end point that takes the liability off the books for an owed check you cannot deliver.

Common questions about stale-dated checks

How long before a check becomes stale?

Six months from the date on the check, under UCC §4-404. After that the bank does not have to pay it, though it may. Certified checks are outside the rule.

Can you cash a stale-dated check?

Sometimes. The bank may pay it in good faith, so a payee who deposits a check written seven months ago may see it clear. If the payer has stopped payment or closed the account, it will be returned. From the payer’s side, that is why a stop payment comes before any reissue.

How do you fix a stale-dated check?

The payee asks the payer for a new one. As the payer: confirm the original has not cleared, stop payment on it, record the reversing entry dated today to Unclaimed Property Payable, and write the new check from that account.

Can a payee deposit a 2-year-old check?

They can try, and a bank is allowed to pay it. If it clears and you had already reversed it in the books, the reversal is undone by recording the bank’s payment against Unclaimed Property Payable. That is one more reason to stop payment when you reverse a check you plan to reissue.

Can stale-dated checks be reissued?

Yes, and that is the right outcome when the payee is still owed. Reissue with a stop payment on the original and the entries in the worked example above, so the expense is not recorded twice.

What happens to a check that is never cashed?

The money stays in your bank account, the check stays on your outstanding list, and the debt to the payee stays real. After the state’s dormancy period, it is reported and paid to the state as unclaimed property. It does not become the business’s money by waiting.

Is a stale check still counted as cash?

On the bank statement, yes: the money never left. In the books it was taken out of cash when the check was written. Reversing the stale check puts it back in cash and records the matching liability, so the balance sheet shows both.

When the outstanding list goes back years

A few stale checks are an hour’s work at year end, and the year-end bookkeeping checklist puts that review in order. A reconciliation carrying years of uncleared checks and deposits is something else: some of those items cleared and were never matched, some are duplicates, and some are real liabilities to people the business has forgotten it owes. Sorting them takes the bank statements for every month back to the oldest item. Cleanup does that month by month, so the outstanding list that is left is one you can explain.

$99per month of backlog20% off 6+ months

When to hand this off: if the outstanding list includes items from more than one year back, or your last reconciled balance no longer matches the bank statement for that month, the list cannot be trusted item by item. A free file review shows how far back the reconciliation is off before any price is given, and QuickBooks cleanup has the full scope.