For paralegals
Bank statement review for paralegals
A production lands as one long PDF and the first week of the matter goes into keying it. Send the whole pile instead: every account is read, every line is dated and carries its page, and what comes back is a queue of the things that need you.
Read and sorted
- 2,140 transactions read, dated and sorted, each one carrying its page
- 209 of 216 account-months read, and the seven still to come named by account and date
- Every statement cycle balanced to the beginning and ending totals the bank printed
For you
- A payee that appears in one account onlyHalstead Supply Co. · $186,400 across 14 payments · operating 4471p. 76
- The March cycle produced twiceOperating 4471 · March 2024 arrived in two of the five filesp. 402
- A third cardholder on the card accountCard 6612 · the statement names three people, two of them the partnersp. 219
Halstead Supply Co. is paid from the operating account fourteen times. Every mention of that payee in three years of records is one of those payments, and each one opens the page it was read from, starting at p. 76.
What runs before you look
Keying statements into a spreadsheet
Send the production whole, in whatever shape it arrived in, and every transaction comes back dated, sorted and carrying its page, scanned pages and phone photographs included.
Working out which months are missing
The months you hold are counted against the months you asked for, and a cycle that arrived twice is caught and shown beside its twin, so the follow-up letter names the account and the date range.
Answering the attorney’s questions
Ask what the company paid one supplier over a period and the answer comes back as a table or a chart, with the payments that make up the figure printed beside it.
Drafting the financial summary
A forensic report written for the matter type: income from the deposits, the transfers out, the related parties, each finding cited to the page it was read from.
Finding the page a number came from
Click a transaction and its statement page opens at the line it was read from, so the question an attorney asks in a meeting is answered while everyone is still in the room.
From the pile to the hand-off
A production looks much the same on every financial matter, whatever the caption says: scans, phone photographs and one file called statements combined. It goes up whole, comes back read, and ends on the page where you decide what matters.
What lands on your desk
Six accounts, three years, and one file the other side called statements combined. Half of it is scanned, and forty-one pages of it were photographed on somebody’s phone.
- Sunderland_operating_2022-2024.pdf604 pp
- statements combined (2).pdf388 pp
- payroll acct jan-dec.pdf212 pp
- Scan_0417.pdf167 pp
- IMG_3318.pdf41 pp
What comes back read
Every line dated, sorted and carrying the page it was read from. On the reconciliation tier each cycle is balanced to the beginning and ending totals the bank printed, and a cycle that comes up short is read again against the page image until every figure matches.
- Deposit · client retainer+42,000.00
- Check 2087 · Halstead Supply Co.−18,500.00
- Transfer to payroll 8802−31,200.00
- Card payment · card 6612−7,940.00
- Check 2094 · Halstead Supply Co.−12,400.00
Where you take over
You open the flag at the page it came off, decide whether fourteen payments to one supplier matter, and write the line the attorney needs before the deposition.
$186,400
Every mention of this payee in three years of records is one of those fourteen payments.
- 02/09CHECK 208718,500.00
Halstead’s registered agent is the partner’s brother. Ask for the invoices before the deposition.
From keying to reviewing
The week spent keying
- The first days go into typing transactions off scans, and the pages that arrived sideways go slowest of all.
- The transfer worth finding is on page four hundred, in the eighth account, and you reach it at eleven at night.
- Every figure in the summary gets checked back to a page by hand before it can go to the attorney.
- The deadline that moved takes the weekend with it, and the attorney thanks you for getting through the documents.
The week spent reviewing
- The production goes up whole and comes back read in minutes, so the first morning starts on the transactions.
- Payments to one payee are already grouped, and the cycles that came up short are flagged with the page beside them.
- Every figure carries its statement page, so checking one is a click while the attorney is still asking.
- The financial story is on the attorney’s desk while the other side is still reading the disclosure, and the question you get is how you found it.
Every matter with statements in it
A litigation paralegal does not work one practice area. The statements arrive in the same shape whether the file is a divorce, a Chapter 7 or two owners who have stopped speaking, and so does the first week.
A divorce with a business in it
The disclosure states a salary and the deposits state something else. Income is computed from the deposits, with money moving between the client’s own accounts marked internal so a transfer counts once. The family law page reads a marriage against its dates.
A Chapter 7 preference window
The trustee wants the payments in the ninety days before the petition and the insiders among them. Every payment out is grouped by who received it, with the days before the filing on each row. The bankruptcy page counts the windows back from the petition.
A partnership coming apart
Two owners, one operating account and a supplier one of them chose. Payments roll up by payee, and a payee the production sees in a single account is flagged for you. The business litigation page traces the money out hop by hop.
The page sits beside the row
A row opens the statement page it was read from, at the line it was read from, so a figure you are unsure about is checked while you are looking at it. Threads are shared across the firm, so the attorney opens the same one and sees the same figures with the same pages behind them.
What paralegals ask first
- Do I need training to run it?
- You send the production the way you would attach it to an email. There is nothing to configure for a matter, no chart of accounts to build and no account list to fill in first, so the first case you run can be a live one.
- Can it read scanned bank statements?
- Yes. Scanned pages and phone photographs are read before anything is extracted, and a bank-generated PDF reads more cleanly than a photograph of one. It reads bank, credit card, check and investment statements.
- How do I know the numbers are right?
- Every figure comes off the page it was read from, and you open that page from the row. On the reconciliation tier each statement cycle is balanced to the beginning and ending totals the bank printed, and a cycle that comes up short is read again against the page image until every figure matches. A figure the records cannot support is left open and flagged for you.
- What do I hand the attorney?
- Every transaction with its page, a forensic report written for the matter type, and exports as CSV, XLSX, PNG or PDF. Threads are shared across the firm, so the attorney can open the same thread and see the same figures with the same pages behind them.
- Does this replace the paralegal?
- It replaces the keying. Reading fourteen payments to one supplier and deciding they matter, knowing which account the attorney will ask about first, and writing the note that goes with the flag is the work the firm is paying you for, and it is the work that is left.
Send one matter’s production
The pile that arrived as one long PDF with somebody else’s file names on it is the thing worth testing this on.
Bank, credit card, check and investment statements