Free Statement of Account Template

In short: A one-page record of where one customer's account stands on one date: what they owed, what you billed, what they paid, and what's due. Your customer uses it to match your records to theirs.

It isn't an invoice. An invoice bills one sale, and a statement bills nothing new. It lists the invoices you've already sent, the payments against them, and what's left.

Every statement has five parts. It names who it's from and to, and gives the statement date. Then come the open lines, an aging row, and what to pay by when, with a slip to send back.

Here they are on Maria Lopez's October 31, 2026 statement to Bayview Dental (Lopez Cleaning Co is fictional and bills on Net 15 terms):

Bayview's office manager can tick off each line against their own bills. INV 1061 isn't due for two weeks. INV 1032 is 31 days late because the check that paid it came back. So the only thing to pay now is $480.00.

Use the same test on yours: could your customer match every line to their records? If a line needs a phone call to explain, fix the line before you send it.

You'll also see it called a customer statement, as in QuickBooks Online and Xero. A "periodic statement" is stricter. Regulation Z requires it of a seller that regularly extends household open-account credit subject to a finance charge (who needs one).

An AR aging report is the inside view: every customer on one page, for you. The statement is one customer's line from it, sent to that customer. Bayview's line on Lopez's October 31 aging is the same $1,460.00.

In short: Send open item to a customer who pays invoice by invoice, and balance forward to one who pays whatever the balance says. Both end at the same balance due.

An open item statement lists each invoice still owed, with its due date and how late it is. Paid invoices drop off. Sage 50's help says it "lists each outstanding invoice that still has a balance due," and that "no previous balance will appear" on it.

A balance forward statement starts from last statement's balance and lists everything since, with a running balance. In Sage 50's words, these statements "consolidate a customer's unpaid balance from month to month."

Bayview pays by invoice number, so send it open item: it names the late invoice. A customer on a flat monthly service who pays the balance each month can work from a running balance just as well.

Does any rule decide it for you? Not one we found: no US standard says which type to send. Open item is the tool's default for business customers, and that's our recommendation, because every line matches an invoice the customer already has.

Why the totals can differ in software

From the same rows, the two layouts give the same balance, and the tool checks that on every statement. Software can show two different totals when a payment isn't applied to an invoice.

Xero, for one, leaves prepayments off its outstanding statement. They're "not deducted from the total balance on the statement, as Xero doesn't account for a prepayment in accounts receivable until it's applied to an invoice."

The tool keeps that money on the statement instead. Harbor Coffee overpaid INV 1045 by $150.00, and its October 31 invoice, INV 1058, is $1,450.00. Its open item statement lists both lines: $1,450.00 − $150.00 = $1,300.00, the same as its balance forward total (the overpayment).

What your software calls each one

On your software's statement screen, pick the matching type and set the statement date to the month-end you're billing. The quotes come from each vendor's help page, read October 19, 2026.

Six steps, with Bayview's numbers. You need the customer's open invoices, everything since the last statement, and their balance in your books. The tool doesn't fit more than one currency, VAT, installment plans, or sub-customers billed through a parent account; run those statements from your invoicing software, where each invoice already carries them.

1. Pick the statement date. Use the last day of the month you're billing, so the statement matches your month-end books. Bayview's is 10/31/2026. For balance forward, the period starts the day after the last statement: October 1.
2. Fill in your business and how to pay. Give your name and address, and how the customer pays you: check, ACH or a payment link. Ask customers to write the invoice numbers on their payment, as the example does (our suggestion), and step 4 gets easier. The tool keeps these details in this browser for your next customer.
3. Enter the customer's rows. Add every invoice still open, plus every payment, credit memo and returned payment since the last statement. Give each invoice its terms, like Net 15. If your invoicing software exports to a spreadsheet, use Paste rows from a spreadsheet under the rows instead of typing.
4. Say which invoice each payment pays. Pick it under Applies to invoice, from the check stub or the customer's remittance. Left empty, the tool applies the payment to the oldest open invoice, the way QuickBooks Online applies credits when Automatically apply credits is on. If a partial payment names no invoice, ask the customer before you apply it (our practice).
5. Type the customer's balance from your books. It goes under Check the balance against your books, right after the rows. Take it from their line in your AR aging, or a customer balance report, for the same date. Bayview's is $1,460.00, so the statement ties.
6. Read "Before you send it," then send. Fix what it flags. Then use Print or save as PDF and keep that copy. Download Excel gives you the same statement with live formulas.

Once October's statement is out, Start next month's statement in the menu carries the balance forward and keeps the rows, so November starts from $1,460.00.

If you only have last month's total

Enter it under More options as an earlier balance, with the date it was due. The statement shows it as one line, aged from that date (our convention).

It works, but your customer can't match a bare total to anything in their records. If you can find the invoices behind it, enter those instead, so the customer can match each one.

In short: Show each payment and credit against the invoice it settles. A check that bounced puts its invoice back on the statement, and a payment nobody applied is money you owe the customer.

When a customer's check bounces

On our reading of the UCC, a check only holds the debt off until it bounces, so the invoice it paid is owed again. We keep its original due date (our convention). The model text says "suspension of the obligation continues until dishonor of the check" (§ 3-310(b)(1)).

Bayview paid INV 1032 on October 19 with a $480.00 check, and the bank returned it unpaid on October 22. Maria found it on October 31, when she reconciled October's bank statement, and recorded it that day.

Until October 31, her books showed INV 1032 as paid. OpenStax's accounting textbook describes this case: the returned check "is reflected on the bank statement but not in the records" of the business that took it.

Date the returned row the day you record it in your books, October 31 here, so the statement and your AR aging agree (our practice).

QuickBooks Online's bounced-check steps ask for "the date the check bounced" instead, October 22 here. If you book it that way, date the row October 22.

Four cases the example doesn't show:

• If Bayview's replacement check arrives on or before the statement date, enter it as a Payment against INV 1032, and the invoice drops off the statement.
• A replacement dated after the statement date waits for next month's statement, like any row dated after it.
• A check that paid two invoices gets one Returned payment row for each invoice, each with its own amount, so both reopen.
• An ACH payment that comes back is a Returned payment too, with the bank's return code in Reference. It can come back after the statement went out: if you pulled the payment by ACH debit, the customer's bank has two days to return it, but a consumer who says the debit wasn't authorized has up to 60 days (our reading). When a return arrives late, enter the Returned payment row and send a corrected statement (our suggestion).

Nacha's guide for originators puts the windows this way: "Corporate SEC codes allow for standard right of return (two days). Consumer SEC codes allow for extended right of return (60 days)."

The bank also charged Lopez a $12.00 returned-item fee, and it isn't on Bayview's statement. QuickBooks Online's help on bounced checks says "this is up to you" about charging the customer that fee.

If you do charge it, put it on an invoice first, so the statement lists something the customer can match. And check that your signed terms allow it. The entries for your books are in the bank reconciliation form.

When a customer pays too much

The extra is a credit you owe the customer, not income. Harbor Coffee paid $1,600.00 on October 26 against INV 1045, a $1,450.00 invoice. Lopez owes Harbor the $150.00 until it's applied or refunded.

Apply it to INV 1058 in your books, or ask Harbor whether they want it back. Either way the statement shows it, so Harbor sees you know about it.

Can you write an old credit off to income? In New York, not without proof. New York's unclaimed property guidance says a business "cannot write off open customer credit balances" without one of these:

• "a specific written disclaimer from the customer," or
• written documents showing the credit was an error or was applied.

Other states set their own rules, so check yours before a credit gets old. The AR aging guide lists the periods in several states.

A credit memo isn't a payment

A credit memo lowers what the customer owes for a reason: a return, a missed visit, a price mistake. Give it its own line, apart from payments. Then the customer can match each to its document: the credit memo for one, their check or remittance for the other.

Regulation Z's periodic statement lists credits as their own item too, for consumer accounts, and FreshBooks keeps credit notes out of its "Paid" total. Counted as a payment, a credit memo makes your customer look like they sent money they never sent. When they ask for the check number, you have nothing to show them.

In short: From each invoice's due date, not from its invoice date or the statement date. An invoice is Current until its due date passes.

Bayview's INV 1061 is dated October 31 on Net 15, so it's due November 15. On the October 31 statement it's Current. INV 1032 was due September 30, so on October 31 it's 31 days past due.

QuickBooks Online's help puts it plainly: the "Current column is anything that is not yet due." Treasury's receivables instructions for federal agencies age debts "from the date of delinquency."

The statement turns that row into one line your customer can act on: pay $480.00 now and $980.00 by November 15, 2026. The tool prints it above the payment slip.

Two counting choices are ours. What about an invoice due on the statement date itself? The tool counts it as Current, because the customer can still pay on time that day. And day 1 is the day after the due date.

Don't label the first aging column "0–30 days." A column like that puts an invoice 20 days late next to one that isn't due for two weeks. Keep Current for invoices not yet due.

In short: The balance due has to equal the customer's balance in your books on the statement date. If it doesn't, your customer may find the difference before you do.

Lopez's books show Bayview at $1,460.00 on October 31, the same as Bayview's line in the AR aging. The statement shows $1,460.00, so the difference is $0.00 and it can go.

Say the books showed $1,940.00 instead. The $480.00 difference equals INV 1032. Start by confirming the books figure is for the same date, then look for INV 1032 entered twice in the books. The tool lists the leads that fit your numbers, quickest first:

1. The books figure itself. It has to be this customer's balance on the same date, on the accrual basis. A report for another date can differ even when every invoice is right.
2. One item equal to the difference. An invoice in the books twice, or one missing from the statement.
3. One item equal to half the difference. A credit entered as an invoice, or the other way round, doubles the gap.
4. Rows dated after the statement date. The tool leaves them for next month's statement, and a report run later includes them.

Then keep a copy of what you sent, because a statement you run again can come out different. QuickBooks Online's help puts it this way: "Statements automatically update to reflect changes made to the underlying transactions."

If someone edits an October invoice in November, an October 31 statement run again won't match the one Bayview has. So save the PDF with the date you sent it.

If an invoice you already sent was wrong, issue a credit memo instead of editing it, and send it with a new statement. Then your copy and the customer's keep matching (our practice).

In short: Get it in writing and acknowledge it within 30 days, then check your side before you argue. Keep billing what isn't in dispute, and close the dispute in writing (our routine).

Differences often come from timing or from how a payment was applied, not from a wrong invoice. Check these first (our order and our reading):

• A payment in transit: the customer mailed a check before the statement date, and you received it after.
• A payment applied to the wrong invoice, or not applied at all.
• A credit memo the customer never received, or one you never issued.
• An invoice the customer never received, or entered under another number.
• A returned payment the customer doesn't know about. Bayview may not know its October 19 check came back.

For the timeline, you can copy one that exists. The University of Virginia's billing office uses this one, and Regulation Z sets similar steps in law for the household open accounts it covers (12 CFR 1026.13).

Say another Lopez customer, Marina Fitness, disputes INV 1021 ($1,250.00) over two missed visits. Tick The customer disputes this invoice on that row. The invoice stays on Marina's statement, marked, and no finance charge falls on it.

Keep billing everything else, and keep a record of every call and email. Treasury's rules for federal agencies are one model: they ask that "all contact with the debtor be documented in the account files," and that the agency respond "within 30 days" if possible.

Once it's settled, send a corrected statement or a short note that the balance stands. Next month's statement then starts from a balance you both accept.

In short: Send them on the same day each month, soon after the month's invoices go out, with a short email that gives the balance and what's past due.

Many business customers have a cut-off, such as the 5th, after which invoices wait for the next month's pay run, says one bookkeeping site, Beginner Bookkeeping. So Lopez sends on the last day of the month, right after invoicing.

A fixed day also lets your customer expect it and tells you when to look for payments. Weber State University's receivables policy, for one, mails them "on approximately the 15th of each month."

Who can skip one? The same bookkeeping guide says customers with a zero balance don't need one unless they ask, nor do customers who pay within a short time, such as 7 days. Our suggestion: send everyone else one every month, even when the balance is small (why a sent statement can help).

Mail the statement to customers who pay by check: the PDF prints with a tear-off slip that comes back with the payment.

If a past-due line is still open a few weeks later, send a reminder, then a demand letter if it stays unpaid (our order). Treasury's rules for federal agencies are one model for the timing. Treasury says "One demand letter sent no later than 30 days after delinquency should be sufficient." Except in rare circumstances, agencies "should not send any more than two demand letters, no more than 30 days apart."

A demand letter is a different document from a statement, and this page doesn't cover it. For a household's debt, some of the collection laws below may apply to it (our reading), so have an attorney review your first one.

In short: A statement your customer keeps without objecting can count as agreement to the balance. It can't add interest or fees they never agreed to, and household customers bring extra rules.

Silence can turn a statement into an agreed balance

Courts call it an account stated: keep a statement too long without objecting, and you may have agreed to its balance. A Minnesota appeals court put the rule this way, quoting the Restatement of Contracts.

“A party's retention without objection for an unreasonably long time of a statement of account rendered by the other party is a manifestation of assent.”

American Druggists Insurance v. Thompson Lumber Co., 349 N.W.2d 569 (Minn. Ct. App. 1984)

In that case a lumber company's monthly invoices stated interest, and the customer "made no complaint" about them. The court let the interest stand but struck the compounding, because the invoices "did not indicate interest was to be compounded."

New York is more careful. Its Appellate Division said "the mere silence and failure to object" isn't agreement on its own. The facts around the account can still make it one when nobody objects within a reasonable time.

So answer a customer's "this is wrong" in writing, and keep sending statements even when every invoice went out. Each one is a dated record that you sent the balance, which can help if the balance is ever questioned. Keep the PDF and the email it went with. How a court weighs it depends on your state.

It affects deadlines too: in California, you have four years to sue on a book account, or on an account stated based on an account in writing (Code of Civil Procedure § 337). If the customer is a household, a debt incurred since July 1, 2024 under a note or written contract isn't a book account there (§ 337a). When the account stated is based on an account of several items, the clock starts at the last one.

Can you add interest or a late fee?

Charge it only at a rate agreed in signed terms, or at one your state's statute sets without an agreement (our advice). Some statutes look for writing: South Dakota's statute, for one, names "an express contract in writing" first, though it also accepts a rate that "clearly appears on the bill, statement, or invoice."

Four statutes show how far apart states are. They're examples, not a survey, so read your own state's statute, or ask an attorney, before you put a rate on a statement.

In the tool, the finance charge stays off until you tick Add a finance charge and then This rate is in the customer's signed terms. Then it charges your monthly rate, for one month, on balances at least as many days past due as you set, and it leaves disputed invoices out (our method).

Household customers: Regulation Z and state collection laws

If you bill only businesses, take one habit from this part: send statements in your business's own name (our suggestion). The law behind it, in the last paragraph, covers household debts. The rest is for sellers who also bill households.

Regulation Z, the federal Truth in Lending rule, covers you when both of these are true (12 CFR 1026.2(a)(17)):

• You extended consumer credit "more than 25 times" in the preceding calendar year. For open accounts, the CFPB's official commentary counts accounts, not sales.
• That credit was subject to a finance charge, or payable by written agreement in more than four installments.

Credit for a business purpose is exempt (1026.3(a)). So Lopez's Net 15 statements to businesses, with no finance charge, aren't Regulation Z documents (our reading of the rule, not a CFPB ruling).

If both are true for your household open accounts, you owe a periodic statement. It needs items this tool doesn't produce, such as your rates, the balance the charge was figured on, and an address for billing errors (1026.7(b)).

California's and Florida's collection laws are aimed mainly at household debts. On our reading, California's Rosenthal Act can cover a business collecting its own household debts, but generally not a Net 15 business account. It defines a debt collector as anyone who "regularly, on behalf of that person or others, engages in debt collection" in the ordinary course of business, and it leaves trade credit out of the business debt it covers.

Florida's § 559.72 starts "In collecting consumer debts, a person may not." Its list includes telling others about a debt you know is disputed without saying so, and calling between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. without consent.

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act excludes a creditor's own staff when they collect "in the name of the creditor" for it. A creditor that "uses any name other than his own which would indicate that a third person is collecting" is covered, though. So send statements in your business's own name.

In short: Signed terms, before the first invoice. The interest and due-date rules above turn on what the customer agreed to, and a signature is your proof.

We found no official US checklist for this. Western Australia's Small Business Development Corporation publishes one. In US terms it comes to five things to get before the first sale on account:

• A credit application the customer signs, confirming they've read your terms.
• Permission to run a credit check.
• A personal guarantee from an owner when the customer is a company (the checklist calls it "a directors' guarantee").
• Terms that state the penalties for late payment, including the interest rate and fees.
• The customer's signed acceptance of those terms before you deliver anything.

For Lopez, that's one page Bayview signs before the first cleaning. It says Net 15, payment by check or ACH, a returned-check fee if Maria wants one, and any finance charge with its rate.

Georgia shows why the signature matters. Without a "writing signed by the obligor" (the customer who owes), its default applies, and the statement date becomes the due date.

In short: Download Excel gives you a workbook with three sheets and live formulas. Change a row, and the balance, the aging and the checks recalculate.

• Statement: the document. Your inputs sit at the top: dates, the books balance and the finance charge settings. Below them come the account summary, the aging and a master check that says whether everything agrees.
• Rows: one row per transaction. Amounts are typed positive, and the type decides the sign. Due dates and each row's effect on the balance are formulas.
• Open items: each invoice with what's still owed, its days past due and its aging column, added up with SUMIFS from the Rows sheet.

In a file you download from the tool, each payment is already split by invoice, one row per application. If you add rows in Excel later, fill in Applies to on every payment and credit memo. An empty one stays a credit: the total is right, but the invoice still shows as open.

For next month, change the statement date, add November's rows, and keep the open ones. We built the file for Excel and haven't checked it in Google Sheets.

For paper, Print a blank statement in the menu gives you a form to fill in by hand.

Check your statement for these seven before you send it. Each one shows up as a balance your customer can't match, or an invoice that looks later than it is.

Ledgental Team wrote this guide and built the tool. Ledgental also makes a bookkeeping app that's free during its beta; this tool doesn't connect to it. The rows you enter stay in your browser, and nothing goes into a link, because the rows hold customer names: the menu downloads, prints and copies. How we research, check sources and use AI tools: About Ledgental.

What the numbers rest on

• The statement is arithmetic on your rows: due dates from the terms, days past due from the statement date, each payment and credit applied to an invoice, and the balance added two ways (balance forward and open item), which always agree. The tool, the Excel workbook, the diagrams and this guide use the same engine, checked by known-answer tests built from the Lopez Cleaning example. The Excel file hasn't been recalculated in LibreOffice yet.
• Our conventions, labeled where they're used: open item as the default; day 1 is the day after the due date; an invoice due on the statement date is Current; a payment with no invoice named goes to the oldest open invoice; a returned payment reopens the invoice it paid; the finance charge is simple, one month per statement, on past-due balances not in dispute; and our reading that Net-term business accounts with no finance charge fall outside Regulation Z.
• Rules and quotes (Regulation Z and its commentary, the FDCPA definitions, Treasury's collection chapter and aging workbook, the Minnesota and New York cases, the California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, South Dakota and Washington statutes, New York's unclaimed property guidance, the University of Virginia and Weber State policies, Western Australia's checklist, OpenStax, and the QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, Wave and FreshBooks help pages) were read at the source between October 18 and October 19, 2026, along with the UCC § 3-310 model text and Nacha's guide on ACH returns. Beginner Bookkeeping's statement guide was read the same day and is credited as practitioner advice, not a rule. Washington's statute was read on Justia because the official site didn't open; Georgia's was read on Justia's copy of the 2025 code, and its official portal wasn't opened.
• Not found or not covered: a US standard on which statement type to send, an official US checklist for extending credit, a primary source on charging interest only on the past-due part (Georgia's and Texas's statutes imply it for their cases), an official rule on sending statements for zero or credit balances (we cite one practitioner's practice instead), demand letters, multi-currency, VAT and installment plans.

What changed

• October 19, 2026: first published: the statement tool (open item and balance forward, payments and credits applied to invoices, returned payments, the tie-out, an optional finance charge), the Excel workbook, and this guide.
• October 19, 2026 (later): guide rewritten for easier reading: shorter sentences, each section opening with its answer, the dispute timelines and the four state statutes put in tables, repeats cut, and the tool's inputs reordered (on a computer: what to have ready, the statement type and date, the customer and your business on the left, then the rows, the books balance with its result, and More options; on a phone your business comes after More options). No number changed; the key figures now show Texas's 6% instead of the Regulation Z count.

Reusing this page: the guide's text, tables and diagrams are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit "Ledgental" with a link to this page. Quotations from federal regulations, statutes and agencies are public domain, and quotations from other sources stay under their owners' terms.

Sources

1. Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.1 and 1026.3 (coverage and the business-purpose exemption), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
2. Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.2 ("creditor", "more than 25 times") and its official interpretations, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
3. Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.7 (periodic statement items), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
4. Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.13 (billing error resolution), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
5. 15 U.S.C. § 1692a, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act definitions, Cornell LII
6. Managing Federal Receivables, chapter 6: Delinquent Debt Collection (revised March 2015), Bureau of the Fiscal Service, U.S. Treasury
7. Instructional Workbook for Preparing the Treasury Report on Receivables and Debt Collection Activities, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, U.S. Treasury
8. American Druggists Insurance v. Thompson Lumber Co., 349 N.W.2d 569 (Minn. Ct. App. 1984), CourtListener
9. Auburn Custom Millwork, Inc. v Schmidt & Schmidt, Inc., 148 AD3d 1527 (4th Dept 2017), New York State Law Reporting Bureau
10. California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 337 and 337a, California Legislative Information
11. California Civil Code § 1788.2 (Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act definitions), California Legislative Information
12. Florida Statutes §§ 559.55 and 559.72 (2025), The Florida Senate
13. Texas Finance Code §§ 302.001 and 302.002, Texas Legislature
14. O.C.G.A. § 7-4-16, interest on commercial accounts (2025 code), Justia
15. SDCL 54-3-5, interest on bills, statements and invoices, South Dakota Legislature
16. RCW 19.52.080, business purpose transactions (2025 code), Justia
17. Uniform Commercial Code § 3-310, effect of an instrument on an obligation (model text), Cornell LII
18. RMAG Originator Essentials (ACH returns), Nacha
19. Unclaimed Property Relating to All Business Entities, reference sheet, Office of the New York State Comptroller
20. Customer accounts resources (disputed charges), University of Virginia Finance
21. PPM 5-3a, Accounts Receivable, Weber State University
22. Statement of Account Sample and Template, Beginner Bookkeeping (Sarah Booysen)
23. Providing credit to customers, Small Business Development Corporation, Western Australia
24. Principles of Accounting, Volume 1, §8.6 (bank reconciliation, NSF checks), OpenStax
25. Create and send customer statements in QuickBooks Online, Intuit QuickBooks help
26. Why aging reports have both Current and 1-30, Intuit QuickBooks help
27. Record a returned or bounced customer check, Intuit QuickBooks help
28. Create and apply credit memos or delayed credits in QuickBooks Online, Intuit QuickBooks help
29. View or send a customer statement, Xero Central
30. Print monthly statements for customers (Sage 50, 2024), Sage
31. Create and send customer statements, Wave help center
32. What are Client Account Statements?, FreshBooks support