What is a bank statement?
A bank statement is a record of the money that went in and out of a bank account over a period, such as a calendar month. You can get a statement for any bank account in your organisation, for a period you choose.
We offer statements in two formats:
- PDF statement: a complete, Griffin-branded statement, which you can keep for your records or share with your customers.
- Xero CSV export: the period's transactions, ready to import into the Xero accounting software.
You request a statement through our API, and we produce it in the background. Most statements are ready within a few seconds. You can then download it in the Griffin app or through the API. Request a bank statement shows you how.
Choosing a period
A statement covers every day from its start date to its end date, including both. The period must have ended before you request it: the end date must be before today in UK time. For example, you can request May's statement from 1 June.
You can get statements for bank accounts that are open, closing or closed, so you can still get one after an account has closed. You can't get one for an account that is still opening. See bank account lifecycle for what these statuses mean.
What's in a PDF statement?
A PDF statement shows:
- the period it covers
- the account holder's name and address
- the account's type, product, sort code, account number and interest rate
- the opening and closing balances, and the total money in and out over the period
- every transaction in the period, with its type and the balance after it
- any changes to the account's interest rate during the period
- regulatory information, including whether the money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
- the date we issued it
To protect against fraud, we don't produce PDF statements for sandbox bank accounts. You can try statements out in the sandbox with a Xero CSV export.
What's in a Xero CSV export?
A Xero CSV export lists the period's transactions in the format that Xero's bank statement import expects, so you can reconcile your account in Xero. It has only the transactions: for balances and account details, use a PDF statement.
The file has a header row, then one row for each transaction:
| Column | Contents |
|---|---|
Date | The day of the transaction in UK time, as YYYY/MM/DD. |
Amount | The change to the balance: positive for money in, negative for money out. |
Payee | Who a payment was sent to, if it was a payment. |
Description | The transaction's description. |
Reference | The transaction's reference. |
Cheque number | Always empty. |
Analysis code | Always empty. |
Transaction type | The kind of transaction, such as payment, interest or fee. |
Statements under your own brand
If you'd rather give your customers statements under your own brand, you can build them from our list transactions API. The API gives you the transactions. You add the rest, such as your customer's address, your branding and the legal information about the account.
Our compliance team will review your statement design as part of your product launch.