How to Run a Risk Analysis on Bank Statements

What It's For

A risk analysis reads a set of statements the way a credit officer would: what the account actually held day to day, where money comes from and whether it will keep coming, what's already committed each month, whether payments have bounced, and whether the statements themselves can be relied on. It's built for lenders, brokers, and accountants reviewing someone's statements, and it works just as well on your own.

The report tells you what to look at and shows the transactions behind every finding. It does not recommend approving or declining anyone. That decision stays with you.

Step 1: Choose the Statements

Nothing is analysed on its own; every analysis starts from statements you pick. There are two ways in:

• Open Statements in the sidebar and choose the Risk reviews tab, then click New risk analysis. A searchable list of your statements opens; tick the ones to read together, preview any of them, and continue.
• On the Statements page, select the statements and choose Run risk analysis from the selection bar. For a single statement, the same option is in its row menu.

The statements can span several banks. A one-statement audit is a thin one, and the report says so, but a single month is often all a lender has, so it's allowed.

Step 2: Check the Scope

Before anything runs, a dialog shows what the report will be based on: how many statements and transactions, the period and how many months it covers, the banks, and the currency. Nothing is analysed until you press Run audit, so this is your chance to fix the selection. The dialog warns you when:

• Days are missing between statements. Anything that happened in a gap is simply absent from the evidence. Add the missing statement now if you have it.
• The selection spans more than one currency. Amounts are withheld from the report rather than converted at a rate Bankflow picked. Ratios, counts, and timing patterns are unaffected.
• A selected statement is switched off. It contributes nothing, and the report records which ones were left out.

Risk analysis always works in calendar months, even if your workspace's months start on another day.

Reading the Report

The attention score

At the top, the report names what was audited and gives it a band, from most to least urgent: Read first, Read before deciding, Worth reading, and Little to follow up. When there isn't enough to go on, it says Not enough to assess. Beside the band is an attention score. Higher means more to look at. It's for ordering a queue of files. It is not a credit decision, a grade, or a probability of default.

What to read first

The most serious findings are pulled out of their sections and listed first, worst first. A serious finding needs reading first, whatever the score. If nothing critical or high came up, the report says so, and the lesser findings stay in their sections below.

The sections

Every finding opens onto the transactions behind it. The sections are:

• Evidence: whether the statements can be relied on. Everything else is only as good as this, so it's shown first and in full. It checks for days missing between statements using each statement's printed period. A statement that prints no period is placed by its first and last transaction dates instead, and the report notes which ones: beside those, a whole missing month still shows as a gap, but a few days missing at either end can't be told apart from a quiet stretch.
• Liquidity: what the account actually held day by day, rather than on statement dates.
• Inflow: where the money comes from, and whether it can be expected to keep coming.
• Obligations: what's already committed each month before anything new is added.
• Distress: payments that have already failed. These are the most predictive rows in a statement.
• Laundering: structural patterns associated with moving money rather than earning it.
• Behaviour: how the account is used, limited to what a lender underwrites against.

Each section also lists the figures it measured, so a section with nothing flagged still shows you what was checked.

The written summary

The report includes a written summary of the findings in plain language. It's written after the analysis is complete and has no effect on it. The summary describes what the evidence shows and what it doesn't; it never tells you what to do or recommends a decision. If a summary can't be written that way, the report is shown without one.

Past Analyses

The Risk reviews tab of Statements lists every audit you've run, with its attention score. Open one to read it again, or delete it. A report is built only from the rows it was given, so reopening it months later shows the same result, even if you've imported more statements since. An audit that didn't finish says so, with a Run again button.

Next Step

If the Evidence section flags a statement, open it and review it: the verification checks and file history there are the same evidence the report is reading.