LivePFS vs. Excel vs. a CPA vs. bank forms: an honest comparison

The four options, in one table

Where a spreadsheet is genuinely fine

A well-built spreadsheet on the standard structure — assets, liabilities, net worth, income, contingent liabilities, a real estate schedule — is a respectable tool, and for some people the right one. It fits when finances are simple (a handful of accounts, one or two properties), requests arrive yearly or less, and the owner actually enjoys maintaining it. The formulas do the totals, the file carries forward, and the price is right. Its failure modes are operational, not conceptual: balances are only as current as the last data-entry session, formula errors ship silently, versions multiply until nobody knows which file went to which bank, and every number is still fetched and re-keyed by hand. If that maintenance genuinely happens every quarter, a spreadsheet answers most requests; the templates guide covers building one on the standard structure.

Where a CPA earns the fee

A CPA-prepared personal financial statement is a formal engagement — typically a compilation under the AICPA's SSARS standards, sometimes a review — and there are situations where nothing else answers:

• A counterparty requires it: some surety and bonding programs, certain private banks, and occasional estate or family-office contexts specifically want a CPA's report attached.
• GAAP-basis personal statements: when statements must follow ASC 274 (assets at estimated current value with tax provisions), that's accountant territory.
• Genuinely hard valuation and structure: complex closely held business interests, trusts, and multi-generation holdings benefit from professional judgment, not just arithmetic.

Two honest caveats in both directions. A compilation is not an audit — the CPA assembles your numbers into proper form without verifying them, so "CPA-prepared" carries less assurance than borrowers assume. And it's dated the day it's issued: it goes stale on the same 90-day clock as everything else, at an hourly rate. For the ordinary run of bank and SBA lending, self-prepared and signed is the norm and lenders verify against source documents either way.

Where blank bank PDFs waste your time

The bank's own form is the right answer exactly once: a single lender, a one-time request, simple finances. Beyond that, the costs compound. Every field is hand-keyed, so each new lender — and each renewal — restarts the research project: log into every account, find every payoff balance, re-derive every total. Nothing carries over between forms, though every bank's grid asks for the same facts in a different order. The arithmetic is yours to get wrong, the form is stale the day after signature, and the lender has no way to distinguish your careful numbers from anyone's optimistic ones — it's self-reported either way. Borrowers who get asked more than twice a year usually conclude the blank form is the most expensive free document they handle.

Where LivePFS fits — and its honest limitations

LivePFS inverts the document model: connect bank, loan, and card accounts read-only through Plaid and brokerages (including Charles Schwab) through SnapTrade, add what providers can't reach — real estate, entities, private interests — once, and the statement stays current, with balances refreshing daily. Output is a lender-ready PDF or formula-driven Excel on demand, a monthly emailed copy, and revocable share links. Every exported PDF carries a QR certificate: a lender scans it, confirms LivePFS issued the document, and can download the original exactly as issued — a provenance check none of the other three options offers.

The limitations, plainly:

• It costs money: $19/month or $190/year after a 7-day trial (card required, first charge at day 7). Manual entry is free, but the connected-account automation is the product.
• Providers are US-only today: accounts at non-US institutions are manual entry.
• No SOC 2 report yet: data is encrypted at rest with managed keys and connections are read-only, but if your organization requires a SOC 2 audit report from vendors, LivePFS cannot hand one over today.
• Verification is provenance, not attestation: the certificate proves the document is genuine and which figures came from institutions — it does not audit your self-entered values, and it is not a CPA opinion.
• Hard-to-reach assets are still your estimates: real estate and private business values are entered and defended by you, in LivePFS as everywhere else.

The fit test is frequency times complexity: one simple statement every few years, use the bank's form; disciplined and simple, use Excel; attestation required, hire the CPA. Multiple entities, a property portfolio, several lender relationships, or a covenant calendar — that's the workload LivePFS was built to delete.