{"id":"concept:bank-statement","kind":"concept","label":"Bank Statement","synonyms":["account statement","card statement"],"definition":"A bank statement is the document a bank or card issuer provides listing a period's transactions along with its beginning and ending balance, used to verify a statement import.","summary":"The source document behind every import. BalanceMCP doesn't just take the transactions on faith — it adds the beginning balance to every transaction and checks the total matches the statement's own stated ending balance, flagging the import if it doesn't.","explanation":["A bank statement is the actual document a bank or credit card issuer produces for a period — a PDF, a CSV, sometimes plain text — listing every transaction alongside the account's beginning and ending balance for that stretch of time. It's the source of truth a statement import is checked against, not just a list of transactions taken on faith.","The arithmetic check is the point of supplying the statement's own beginning and ending balance during an import: BalanceMCP adds the beginning balance to every extracted transaction and verifies the sum equals the stated ending balance. When it doesn't, the import is flagged rather than silently accepted, since a mismatch usually means the extraction missed a row or picked up an extra one.","A real, common cause of a mismatched statement is a transaction that spans a page break in a PDF — split awkwardly across two pages during extraction, or dropped entirely. Re-checking the source document around any page boundary is often where a flagged discrepancy traces back to.","A statement's transaction amounts and balances need to be entered in the ledger's own signed convention, not necessarily how they're printed — a credit card's beginning and ending balance both need to be negative, since they represent money owed, even if the printed statement shows them as plain positive figures."],"commonMistakes":["Missing a transaction that spans a page break during PDF extraction — a common, specific cause of a flagged, unbalanced import.","Entering a statement's printed figures verbatim instead of translating them into the ledger's signed convention — a credit card's balances need to be negative.","Treating a flagged import as something to ignore rather than a signal to re-check the source document before trusting the numbers downstream."],"category":"banking","questions":[{"question":"What happens if the numbers on my statement don't add up after import?","answer":"The import still happens, but it comes back flagged with the discrepancy amount — usually a sign that a row was missed or duplicated during extraction, worth checking against the source document."},{"question":"Do I enter my credit card statement's numbers exactly as printed?","answer":"No — the ledger's convention needs a card's beginning and ending balances entered as negative numbers, since they represent money owed, even if the statement itself prints them as plain positive figures."}],"url":"/glossary/bank-statement","relatedTo":[{"id":"concept:statement-import","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Astatement-import"},{"id":"concept:bank-transaction","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Abank-transaction"},{"id":"concept:opening-balance","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Aopening-balance"},{"id":"concept:ending-balance","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Aending-balance"},{"id":"tool:import_statement","relationship":"references","weight":0.7,"api":"/api/knowledge/tool%3Aimport_statement"}],"referencedBy":[{"id":"concept:statement-import","label":"Statement Import","url":"/glossary/statement-import"}],"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"BalanceMCP — https://balancemcp.com"}