Is there a template for a monthly statement of account, and what should it contain?

What is a statement of account, and how does it differ from an invoice or a receipt?

AccountingTools' statement-of-account definition calls it a detailed report of the contents of an account, typically sent to a customer to show billings to and payments from that customer during a specific period and the resulting ending balance. The same page gives its purpose as reminding the customer of credit sales not yet paid. It creates no new charge: every line repeats an invoice, credit or payment already in your books.

The two documents it is confused with do different jobs:

• Invoice. AccountingTools' invoice definition says an invoice identifies a transaction for which the customer owes payment, and that the buyer uses it as the triggering document to initiate payment.
• Receipt. AccountingTools' receipt definition says a receipt is issued after payment as proof that the buyer has paid.

Swapping them misleads the recipient. A statement laid out and titled like an invoice can be entered in the customer's payables as a new bill, so the invoices it repeats get paid twice. An invoice sent in place of a statement hides the balance and the other open items, and a statement showing a payment is not a receipt for it. Title the document "Statement of account" and give it no invoice number; what an invoice itself must carry is a separate question.

Should you issue a balance-forward or an open-item statement?

Intuit's help page Create and send customer statements in QuickBooks Online (updated June 1, 2026) describes its Balance Forward type as listing invoices, payments and the current balance for a date range, and its Open Item type as listing all unpaid invoices from a start date to the present. The two styles carry different lines:

Balance-forward suits a customer who pays against the account or wants to see all activity; open-item suits one who pays invoice by invoice. For a QuickBooks Online Open Item statement, set the start date on or before the customer's oldest unpaid invoice, and check whether unapplied payments and credits appear. Because the list runs to the present, date the statement the day you generate it and agree it to the ledger at that date, or use Balance Forward for a period-end statement.

What identifies the statement?

Put an identifying block at the top; each element lets the recipient file and act on the document:

• Your business. Give your name, address and a contact for queries; AccountingTools mentions a block with the seller's collections contact in case the recipient wants to discuss the statement.
• The customer. Use the name and billing address held on the account, so the statement reaches the right payables team.
• Account reference. Show your customer or account number, which the recipient uses to match the statement to your record and to quote in queries.
• Statement date. Print the cut-off date; nothing dated after it belongs in the balance.
• Period covered. Give the start and end dates, which fix the opening balance and the items included.
• Currency and terms. State the currency and your payment terms, so due dates and overdue amounts can be read.

What activity lines does it carry, and in what order?

AccountingTools lists what a sample statement usually includes:

• The beginning total of unpaid invoices
• The number, date and total of each invoice issued in the period
• The number, date and amount of each credit issued in the period
• The date and amount of each payment received in the period
• The net remaining balance of all transactions listed
• A tear-off payment slip used as a remittance back to the seller

List the lines in date order with a running balance, give each payment its check or transfer reference and the invoice it settled, and end with a movement summary so the recipient can see how the balance moved.

What does a completed statement look like?

Northfield Supply Co. issues this balance-forward statement (all figures invented):

Movement: opening 2,330.00 plus invoices 2,255.00, less payments 1,850.00 and credits 120.00, gives the closing 2,615.00.

The footer reads: "Aging counts days from invoice date. Past due: 480.00 (INV-1033, due May 20). Not yet due: 2,135.00 (INV-1058 due July 9, INV-1066 due July 23). Payments received after June 30, 2026 are not shown." A tear-off remittance slip repeats the account number and statement date and gives the mail-to address, the customer name and a box for the amount paid.

As an open-item statement, the same account lists INV-1033 at 480.00, INV-1058 at 820.00 after the credit and INV-1066 at 1,315.00, totaling 2,615.00, with no opening balance.

How should overdue amounts be shown?

AccountingTools says invoice amounts may be split into time buckets so the reader can see which invoices are overdue and which are not yet due, and that depending on the accounting software the bucket durations may be adjustable. Say what the days count from and make the buckets total the closing balance: in the example, net 30 terms counted from invoice date make the 480.00 in the 61–90 column past due. The presentation asks the recipient to pay the overdue items or tell you why not, such as a dispute or a payment already sent. Following up an account that stays overdue is a separate collections routine.

Is the statement a request for payment or a summary?

Decide before you word it, because the same layout serves both:

• Request for payment. This is the purpose AccountingTools gives, with a tear-off payment slip for remittance. State the amount past due, the due dates of the rest, how to remit, and that payments received after the statement date are not shown.
• Summary. For a year-end confirmation or a customer's request, put "For information" beside the title, leave out any "amount due" line and the remittance slip, and say the invoices remain payable on their own terms. Without that wording a summary is read as a second bill.

If the closing balance is a credit, you owe the customer: drop the request wording and the slip, and say whether the credit will be paid out or carried forward.

Treat the statement date as a hard cut-off. Zoho Books' undated help page Other Actions for Customers/Vendors says a customer statement does not include sales or unused credits dated in the future or outside the chosen date range. Put every invoice, credit and payment dated on or before the statement date in the balance and nothing dated after it; if you list a later receipt for information, mark it as received after the statement date and keep it out of the balance. A payment the customer sent before the date that had not reached you still shows as open, and the cut-off line tells them the difference is timing.

How do you agree the closing balance to your ledger before it goes out?

OpenStax's Principles of Accounting, Volume 1 (section 7.2) says the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger gives details about each person who owes the company money, and that the amounts owed in it must equal the Accounts Receivable account in the general ledger. The statement is that customer's subsidiary account for the period, so on the accrual basis agree it in this order:

1. Post every invoice, credit memo and payment dated up to the statement date, and apply each payment and credit to the invoice it settles.
2. Generate the statement from the customer's account rather than retyping invoices.
3. For a balance-forward statement, check that the opening balance equals the previous statement's closing balance. If it does not, show each earlier-dated entry posted or changed since that statement, with its date and reference, between the two figures or in a note; never overwrite either figure to force a match.
4. Compare the closing balance with that customer's balance on an aged receivables report dated the statement date. For an account in another currency, compare in that currency, not the base-currency figure in your books.
5. Agree the report's total to Accounts Receivable in the general ledger at the same date, and resolve any difference before any statement leaves. OpenStax notes that this step may be unnecessary in accounting systems where the subsidiary ledger updates the general ledger automatically.

If your books are on the cash basis and keep no receivables account, there is no control figure: the customer's balance is their open invoices less unapplied payments and credits, so agree the statement to that list. On either basis, issuing a statement posts nothing to your books.

How is the statement delivered, and what copy do you keep?

AccountingTools says a statement is usually printed but may be sent electronically. Intuit's page says you can view, reprint, email or delete statements already generated in QuickBooks Online, and that deleting one removes the statement record from QuickBooks. The same page notes that statements automatically update when the underlying transactions change, so a later reprint may not match what you sent. Keep a PDF of each statement exactly as sent, with the date, the recipient's address or email and the method, outside the software, where no later deletion, edit or regeneration can change it: a statement regenerated after a late posting is a different document.

Where can you get a template, and how do you judge one?

A statement template comes from one of three places:

• Your accounting software. Intuit's page describes QuickBooks Online statements that list recorded transactions, so the lines come straight from the ledger.
• A spreadsheet or document template from another publisher. Every figure is typed in, so each line has to be agreed to the ledger.
• A layout you build. Start from an element list such as AccountingTools' sample contents and the checklist below.

Run the checklist below against a sample from any candidate, and reject one that cannot do the following:

• Show an opening balance and running balance, or open-item columns, for the style you issue
• Set aging buckets to your terms and label what the days count from
• Show the currency and be worded as a request or a summary
• Produce a fixed PDF you can keep as issued

How do you adapt a template to your accounts and terms?

Adapt it in this order, then run the checklist again:

1. Map your account structure. Intuit's page says that when a sub-customer is set to bill with its parent in QuickBooks Online, you must create the statement for the parent customer to include the sub-customer's transactions; give each separately billed location its own account reference.
2. Set your terms: a due-date column, and aging buckets that match them.
3. Change the presentation (logo, column names, wording) without removing the period, opening balance, references, running balance, currency or closing balance.
4. Produce a test statement for an account whose balance you know, and agree it to the ledger.

What changes for a monthly run or a foreign-currency account?

A routine run fixes one set of parameters for every account: statement date, period, style, aging buckets, cut-off and wording. Intuit's page has you select the checkbox next to each customer who should receive a statement and set the statement date, start date and end date. The same page notes that QuickBooks Online generates no statement for a customer with no activity matching the criteria in the date range. AccountingTools notes that statements are generally issued immediately after month-end, so post every receipt dated up to the cut-off first. Before release, check that every customer with a balance on the aged receivables report has a statement, and produce any that are missing. Then agree the aged receivables total to Accounts Receivable, confirm each recipient's email or mailing address against the account, and preview a sample: the largest balance, one with a credit, one in another currency.

Where an account carries another currency, name the currency on every amount column and beside the closing balance, and give each currency its own lines and closing balance rather than one mixed total. Zoho Books' undated Currencies help page says that once you assign a currency to a customer, all the transactions you create for them will be in that currency. Translating those amounts for your own books is a separate matter.

What should you check on a statement you receive?

The elements are the same, but here you check for them rather than supply them: the supplier's name and yours, your account reference, the statement date and period, an opening balance or open-item list, dated and referenced items, the closing balance, the currency, and whether it requests payment or only summarizes. A balance-forward statement missing its period or opening balance, or any statement whose items lack dates and references, cannot be checked, so ask the supplier for a complete one; an open-item statement has no opening balance by design. Tying each line to your own payables records is a separate reconciliation job.

What should you check before a statement goes out?

Run this checklist against every draft:

• The title reads "Statement of account", with no invoice number.
• Both parties with a contact for queries, the account reference, the statement date, the period and the payment terms are shown.
• A balance-forward opening balance equals the previous closing balance, or the entries explaining the difference are shown; an open-item list includes unapplied payments and credits.
• Every line has a date, a reference and an amount.
• The lines add up to the closing balance: opening balance plus charges, less payments and credits, or the sum of the open items.
• The closing balance equals the customer's ledger balance in the account's currency at the statement date (their open invoices less unapplied items on cash-basis books), and the aged receivables total agrees to Accounts Receivable.
• The aging buckets total the closing balance and say what the days count from.
• Nothing dated after the statement date is in the balance, and the cut-off line is printed.
• Every amount column and the closing balance name the currency.
• The wording matches the purpose: amount due, due dates and remittance slip for a request, and no payment request in a summary or on a credit balance.
• A copy as issued is saved outside the software with the date, recipient and method.