What is a Monthly Statement?
A monthly statement is a general term for a personalized financial record that regularly informs a recipient about the status of his or her account. It is generally mailed to the recipient on or near the same day each month. There as many different types of monthly statements as there are types of accounts. For a checking account, a monthly statement will show the current balance in the account as of the statement date. The customer can check to see that all charges against the account are accurate, and that all deposits or credits that have occurred since the previous month’s statement have been applied. If the account is overdrawn, this will also show on the statement. A monthly statement for a savings account likewise shows the current balance accumulated and deposits or interest dividends applied in the current month’s activity. If money has been withdrawn from the savings account in the previous 28-31 days, this should also be shown on the monthly statement. While a bank statement
Each month, you will likely receive a statement from your financial institution, either in the mail or on-line. The question is, what do you do with it? Throw it away? No! The purpose of your statement is to enable you to compare what you have recorded in your checkbook register to the bank record. This process is called “reconciling,” which means coming to agreement on something. When you reconcile the bank’s statement with your register, you come to agreement as to what your correct balance should be. So why would there be a difference in what your register shows and what the bank shows? There could be several reasons for the difference: you may have written a check on Monday the 31st, the last day of the month. Each bank statement covers a month, and usually ends on the last day of the month. Although you wrote the check, and subtracted the amount from your balance in your register, the bank does not show it as having cleared your account yet. We will learn what to do about that in
