What Is a Bank Statement: Everything You Need to Know

You get a statement from your bank every month. This is what it looks like. All the money and money that has come in and gone out can be seen on a bank statement. The more you understand your bank statement, the more you can learn about your money habits and decide how to spend your money better. What is a bank statement, and how it can help you see your money in a new way?

What You Need to Know

It shows everything that happened to your bank account over a month, like how much money you spent. All of the money that has come and gone from your account is shown on your bank statement. People and dates are also shown when there is a deal. That way, you can see who you paid and when the money came out of the bank. When you know this, you can better manage your savings and make better money decisions.

This is what you'll find on most bank statements:

• The bank account number, the name, and the address
• In most cases, your bank statement covers a month, so this is the time frame that it covers
• Information about the bank, such as the customer service number and how to report fraud and mistakes, can be found on this page
• Balance at both start and end of the reporting period: This is the balance at both
• Every time you use your bank account, all the money that comes out of it, like money you buy, the money you transfer, the money you take out of an ATM, the money you set up to pay, and fees
• The money that you have put into your account, including direct deposits and checks
• It's also possible to see how much interest you've earned

How Does This Work?

It tells you everything that happened to your account over the last month, such as how much you spent and how much you paid. The first thing you see when you open most bank statements is a list of all of the deposits you made in the last month. This tells you how much money came into your account. Afterward, you'll be able to see all of your withdrawal histories in one place. At the beginning of the month, your summary will show how much money you had in your account. At the end of the month, it will show how much money you had left.

There will be a summary at the top of your bank statement. It will show you how much money you made and when, as well as who paid you for each of those transactions. The length of your bank statement depends on how often you use your account to pay for things. It could be a few pages long, or it could be a few hundred pages long. Most of the time, you can see your transactions in the order that they happened, but there are times when you can't.

Electronic Bank Statements vs Paper Bank Statements

Generally, most banks will let you choose how you want to get your bank statements sent to you. People get paper statements in the mail, or they get electronic bank statements that are sent to their accounts right away. You can choose which one you want. Some banks might charge you to get paper statements, but it might not be worth it for everyone. If you're going to go paperless and get your statements electronically, that might be the best thing to do, but you should think about it first.

In most cases, you have to log in to your account and look for a menu item that says "bank statements." A statement option might not show up on your navigation bar right away. This might be under a heading like "Services" or "Account Information" if it isn't there at the top right away. Then, when you find your statements, you can choose which month to look at them.

How Long Should I Keep My Bank Statements?

When you apply for a loan or get a divorce, you might need to look at your bank statements from the past. If you want to do this, you can look at your bank records from last year. You should be able to get a copy of your bank statements from the bank for at least five years. The items should still be there even if your account is closed. Some banks charge a fee for people to look at statements that are more than a few years old.

Keeping statements from the past is easy. You can either download statements from the past into an encrypted folder on your computer, or you can save paper copies. Whenever you don't want to keep paper copies of bank statements, you can throw them away or delete them if you don't need them