Why doesn’t my fee log report match my quarterly DCA report?

This is a common reconciliation issue. The core reason: SDL Desktop’s DCA report runs on permit issue date, while financial/bank reports run on payment date — and these don’t always land in the same period.

Common Causes

#	Cause	Detail
1	“Auto issue update permits on creation” is enabled	Most frequent root cause — update permits (+A) receive an issue date on creation rather than at payment, splitting DCA and bank records across periods. Fix: disable this in Tools > Construction Options
2	Payment collected on a different day than issuance	E.g., permit issued July 11, paid August 4 → July DCA report, August bank deposit. These won’t reconcile month-to-month
3	Payment not posted to the correct fee item	Money sits unapplied. Run the Fee Item Report — if total collected ≠ sum of fee subtotals, funds are unapplied somewhere
4	TCO/certificate issued on an old permit	The original DCA fee carries forward, showing on the daily bank detail report without representing a new DCA collection
5	Imported legacy permits	The system may know the total collected but can’t always map it to the correct fee item

How to Reconcile

Compare against bank deposit slips using the Daily Bank Detail Report (not the DCA report).
Use the Fee Item Report to confirm total collected equals the sum of all fee subtotals.
Reconcile by quarter, not by month — cross-boundary timing issues typically resolve within the quarter.
End-of-month bank timing (e.g., the bank closes mid-day on the 31st and deposits on the 1st) is expected, not an error.

If a DCA fee needs correcting, adjust it on the permit — this leaves an overpayment to be refunded separately, and the next DCA report will show the corrected amount.