How to fill out a personal financial statement

Step 1: Pick the date and gather statements

A PFS is a snapshot, so every number on it should be true as of the same date — usually the most recent month-end, or simply today. Mixing a January bank balance with a March brokerage balance quietly breaks the statement. Before writing anything, pull the documents that carry your numbers:

• Bank statements or current online balances for every checking, savings, and money market account
• Brokerage and retirement account statements
• The most recent statement for each mortgage, credit card, auto loan, and other debt — or better, current payoff balances
• A current estimate of each property's market value
• Recent valuations or your own supportable estimate for each business interest
• Life insurance statements showing cash surrender value, if any

Lenders generally want the statement dated within the last 90 days, so there's no benefit to building it from older paperwork.

Step 2: List your assets, category by category

Work through the asset side in the order most forms use. The rule everywhere: current fair market value, not what you paid.

• Cash and bank accounts — every checking, savings, money market, and CD balance. This is the line underwriters read first.
• Investment accounts — brokerage accounts at market value. Many forms ask for a supporting schedule of stocks and bonds; totals by account are a fine starting point.
• Retirement accounts — 401(k), IRA, and similar accounts at current value. List them even though they're not liquid; some lenders discount them, but omitting them just understates you.
• Life insurance — the cash surrender value, not the death benefit. Term insurance has no cash value and adds nothing here.
• Accounts and notes receivable — money genuinely owed to you, including loans you've made personally or to your own businesses.
• Real estate — each property at your estimate of current market value. Be ready to support the number with comparable sales, a recent appraisal, or a tax assessment; the mortgage goes on the liability side, not netted against the property.
• Business interests — the value of your stake in each LLC, corporation, or partnership. Common supportable approaches include your share of book value, a recent transaction or valuation, or a conservative earnings multiple. Whatever the method, be consistent from statement to statement.
• Vehicles and personal property — realistic resale values, in round numbers. Don't inventory the furniture; a single reasonable line is fine.

Step 3: List your liabilities

Liabilities are quicker but less forgiving — every one of them appears on your credit report, so the lender will notice anything missing. Use current payoff balances, not monthly payments:

• Credit cards and revolving accounts — current balances, even if you pay in full monthly
• Auto loans and other installment debt
• Notes payable to banks and others — personal loans, lines of credit at their drawn balance, and loans from individuals
• Mortgages — the payoff balance on each property, matched one-for-one against the real estate you listed
• Loans against life insurance policies
• Unpaid taxes — any balance owed beyond normal withholding, including installment agreements
• Anything else you owe — margin loans, pledged asset lines, personal loans from family that you intend to repay

Step 4: Calculate net worth

Total the assets, total the liabilities, and subtract. Net worth is the headline number, and the only rule is that it must reconcile — if the columns don't tie to the total, the statement comes back. Round consistently (whole dollars, or consistent thousands) and resist precision you can't support: "$2,400,000" for a property estimate is honest; "$2,417,350" invites questions about where the figure came from.

Step 5: Income and contingent liabilities

Most forms ask for annual income by source: salary, net investment income, real estate income, and other income. Use figures consistent with your tax returns — the lender will have those too.

Contingent liabilities are debts that become yours only if something happens: loans you've guaranteed or co-signed (including guarantees of your own companies' debt), and pending legal claims or judgments. Borrowers skip this section more than any other, and it's a mistake — guarantees surface during underwriting anyway, and a statement that disclosed them upfront reads far better than one that didn't.

Step 6: Sign it, date it, keep your support

The signature certifies the statement is true and complete as of its date — on SBA and most bank forms, under penalties for false statements. An unsigned or undated PFS is the single most common reason one bounces back from a lender. Before you send it, keep a copy of the statement and the documents behind each number. The next request will come, and next time you'll be updating rather than reconstructing — more on that in how often to update a PFS.

The mistakes lenders notice

• Stale balances — numbers copied from a statement three months old, or a PFS reused from the last loan. Lenders check dates first.
• Missing contingent liabilities — guarantees on business or family loans left off. Cross-checked and noticed.
• Double counting — listing an LLC's building as your real estate and the LLC interest as an asset. Pick one: the interest, or the property with your ownership share noted (the lender's form will tell you which it wants).
• Purchase price instead of market value — decades-old cost figures for real estate, or optimistic round numbers with nothing behind them.
• Netting debts against assets — showing "home equity" as one line instead of the property as an asset and the mortgage as a liability.
• Numbers that contradict your tax return or credit report — an income line or debt list that doesn't survive comparison.
• Arithmetic that doesn't tie — categories that don't add to the totals shown.
• Unsigned or undated — the fastest way to have the whole package returned.