Thursday, December 15, 2011

Whats the difference between "Current Balance" and "Available Balance" on my bank statement?

Your current balance is what the bank has for your balance on the ledger.





However, most times you don't have access to most of it. If you've recently deposited a check, they may hold that and that amount would not be "Available" for a few days. Also if you buy something with a debit card, the purchase amount is deducted from what's available even though it hasn't officially cleared.|||Well its tricky cause I don't know what bank, but I work at one and we have 3 balances.





Current/ledger which is what your balance was at midnight (when everything posted).





Memo (also known as current) balance which includes all deposits, debits, credits, checks, etc that have gone through on the account (this is pretty much what your balance is, unless you deposited a bad check or something).





Then available balance. This is the amount of funds you currently had/have to spend until everything that is going through posts. Which is posted at midnight everyday. However remember after the banks business day ends friday nothing will post till monday at midnight. |||When you use your card or another electronic transaction is pending, the computer actually encumbers the money for that transaction. This money is then taken away from the balance that is in your account. Therefore the money that is in the account is current balance and the pending transaction is taken away from that to give you an available balance. NOTE dont count on the current balance, use the available balance. |||Current balance is what you have deposited in the account. Like a check drawn on another bank. Available balance is what is actually collected. Like checks that have been deposited and have been transferred 'in' the account.

1 comment:

  1. Great post!!Thanks for sharing it with us....really needed.Ordering Checks online is a lot easier than most people realize. It takes only a few minutes from start to finish. Most issues that people are looking at when shopping for personal bank checks are 1. Who is a trustworthy supplier, 2. Price (very important), 3. check styles.Reorder-Chicks

    ReplyDelete