More on Account Statements

A big part of this internship has been the account statements, so I wanted to explain more about them. The statements come from companies like TD Ameritrade, Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch.

These statements usually come monthly, and detail all the transactions that happen within a certain account. What I do is I need to check the balance from the end of the previous month and the balance at the end of the current month, and check all the transactions to make sure they all dd up. For example, let's say that Bob's account had $100 at the end of January, and $200 at the end of February. Bob deposited $150 into his account. He also took in $25 in dividend money. That makes a total change of $175 in the month of February. Logically one would think that he would not have $275 in his account, the first $100 and this month's $175. But he doesn't, he has $200. Where did that $75 go? The account statement will contain information on the seemingly missing money. If you look through the statement, you'll find that there was a $50 fee charged to the account. Also, his stocks wend down in value by the amount of $25. That accounts for the missing $75.

 Each company's statement has a different layout, but all convey the same information. With this information, I go through and figure out what went into and out of the account, and make sure all the numbers add up. Obviously most accounts deal with numbers much higher than a few hundred dollars. Usually the accounts contain hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes even millions. The more money in the account, the more activity in the account; accounts with not very much money usually don't have investments and dividends to worry about.