Learn the monthly routine with fictional records before you touch your own. You'll need the SaleLedger Windows app and a license key. Keep the practice files separate from your business records.
See the finished report for this practice month →
A narrated tour of the app in eleven steps, with the control to click highlighted on every screen and English captions. About four minutes. Pause to follow along with the practice files.
One fictional auction month for a fictional auction house. The files are shaped exactly like real Auction Flex, QuickBooks, and bank exports, so what you learn here carries over directly.
co_summary_report.csvAuction Flex settlement export — Consignment Order totalssample_export.iifQuickBooks / IIF export from Pay Consignorsbank_statement.csvTrust account bank statement, August 2026README.txtThe values to type in, and what to expectThe practice month is out of balance on purpose. It contains one of each kind of problem SaleLedger catches, so you can see how each is reported.
On getsaleledger.com, click Start free trial. Stripe handles checkout; a card is required, but nothing is charged for 30 days, and you can cancel before then from your billing page. The page after checkout shows your license key, SL-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX, and the download link. Copy the key somewhere safe — it's also kept with your subscription, so you can return to that page any time.
Run SaleLedger-Setup.exe once; it puts a SaleLedger icon on your desktop. Double-click that icon. SaleLedger opens in your web browser at 127.0.0.1:5151 — a page served by your own computer, not by us. Paste your key and click Activate.
Settlement export from Auction Flex. Consignor Summary (Reports #21/#23), Totals by Consignment Order (#24/#25), or Totals by Item (#26/#27) — whichever you already run. Save it as CSV.
QuickBooks / IIF export. In Auction Flex, Pay Consignors → Export to QuickBooks for the same auction.
Trust account bank statement. Download from your bank as CSV, Excel, or the Quicken / QuickBooks "Web Connect" file (OFX/QFX).
Under Option A — Auction Flex + QuickBooks, choose the three files. Enter the auction number, the trust account's opening balance on the first day of the period, and the as-of date. For the practice set: 246, 150000.00, 2026-08-31. Click Run reconciliation.
The report opens with one status — IN BALANCE or OUT OF BALANCE — and the three figures that have to agree: the bank's adjusted balance, the trust control balance from your records, and the consignor subledger total. In the practice month they're $166,730.00, $150,475.00, and $150,000.00, so the month is out of balance and the report says so.
Every gap becomes a numbered exception in plain English. Practice with these:
Disbursement mismatch — Consignor A's check cleared for $27,700.00 but the ledger recorded $27,200.00: a $500 overpayment to chase.
Unmatched receipt — a $20,000.00 deposit with no auction or consignor behind it: find the source before it sits in trust.
Unmatched disbursement — a $2,950.00 wire to the operating account with no authorization: the classic commingling finding.
Bank fee — a $95.00 monthly service fee the bank took from trust: record it, or move it to operating.
The report ends with a check register — date, payee, check number, amount — which is what Wisconsin SPS 125.12(1) and similar state bookkeeping rules ask for. Save the page (or print to PDF) with your monthly records. Every run is also added to a local history, so you can show a state examiner each month you reconciled.
SaleLedger pre-fills the opening balance from last period's actual bank ending balance, so you don't retype it. Bring in three new files, click Run, read the result. If you're checking a full month with several auctions, include settlement data for every auction that had activity — otherwise their deposits and checks show up as unexplained.
Delete the practice history when you're done (it's in ~/.saleledger/history.json) so it doesn't sit next to real months. Then run your first real reconciliation.