Last reviewed October 7, 2026 · By the NYBACS advisory team
Short answer
Usually a bank or fintech wants records that explain where the company's money comes from and where it goes: recent bank statements, a profit and loss statement and balance sheet, invoices or contracts behind large receipts, evidence of how the owners funded the company, and payment-processor reports. A pre-revenue company is typically asked for a business plan and realistic projections instead of historical financials.
Key takeaways
- Banks must understand the nature and purpose of each business relationship and monitor activity against it, so accounting records are requested at onboarding and again during later reviews.
- The strongest evidence is a reconciled ledger that ties to bank statements, not a standalone set of polished reports.
- Owner contributions, shareholder loans and intercompany transfers should be recorded and documented as such, never mixed into revenue.
- Payment-processor payout reports must reconcile to bank deposits, with fees, refunds and chargebacks shown separately.
- For a new company, projections submitted at onboarding become the baseline the bank compares real activity against.
When accounting records enter a banking review
Financial records are requested at three distinct points, and each has a different purpose:
- Onboarding — the institution is building a customer risk profile. It wants to see that the business is real and that the account's expected use makes sense for it.
- Periodic or event-driven reviews — under ongoing monitoring, a bank may send a request for information after an unusually large wire, payments to a new country, a sudden spike in volume or a change in ownership. Fintech platforms do the same, and a customer can also be re-reviewed when a platform moves accounts to a different partner bank.
- Credit and product upgrades — a credit card, line of credit, higher transfer limits or merchant services usually require financial statements and, often, tax returns.
The records overlap, but a review triggered by one transaction is narrower: the bank wants the documents behind that specific movement of money, quickly.
The core record set and what each shows a reviewer
| Record | What it tells the bank or fintech |
|---|---|
| Statements for every account, including other banks, fintechs and processors | The full picture of money in and out, not just activity at this institution |
| Profit and loss statement | Whether revenue and costs fit the stated business model |
| Balance sheet | How the company is funded: owner capital, loans or retained earnings |
| General ledger or transaction detail | That individual receipts and payments are classified, not guessed |
| Customer and supplier lists with countries | Where counterparties are, which drives sanctions and geographic risk checks |
| Invoices and contracts for large receipts | The commercial reason behind a specific inbound payment |
| Payment-processor payout reports | How gross sales become net deposits after fees, refunds and chargebacks |
| Federal returns, such as Form 1120, Form 1065 or a pro forma Form 1120 with Form 5472 | That figures given to the bank match those given to the IRS |
A bank rarely needs everything at once. Having the set ready means you can answer any request within a day instead of rebuilding records under pressure.
Documenting source of funds for owner money
For foreign-owned companies, the most scrutinized entries are often not sales but money from the owners. A reviewer seeing a large inbound international wire wants to know whether it is revenue, an equity contribution or a loan, and where the owner obtained the funds.
Good documentation usually includes:
- the sender's bank statement showing the outgoing transfer;
- for a corporate parent, a board resolution or intercompany agreement authorizing the funding;
- a signed loan agreement with interest terms if the money is a loan rather than capital;
- the ledger entry showing it was booked to equity or a loan account, not to income.
The same classification affects tax reporting: a foreign-owned single-member LLC reports owner contributions and loans as related-party transactions, so the bank file and the tax file should tell the same story.
What a pre-revenue company can show instead
A company opened last month has no history to present. Institutions then lean on forward-looking documents:
- A short business plan describing products, customers and how the US company fits into the group.
- Twelve months of projections showing expected monthly inflows and outflows, typical transaction sizes and the countries involved.
- Evidence of initial funding and its origin.
- Signed contracts, letters of intent or a sales pipeline, if any exist.
Keep the projections realistic. If you tell a bank to expect a modest volume of domestic payments and then receive large international wires in the first month, the mismatch itself can trigger a review, even when every transaction is legitimate.
Why reconciled books beat polished reports
Reviewers test records against each other. They compare revenue on the profit and loss statement to deposits on bank statements, check that processor payouts net to the right amount, and look for transfers with no explanation.
Three habits make those tests easy to pass:
- Monthly bank and processor reconciliations, so every deposit is matched to a sale, a contribution or a loan.
- Tagging related-party transactions — owner, parent and affiliate movements — in their own accounts.
- Attaching support to large transactions — an invoice, contract or agreement for any receipt that would look unusual without one.
Companies that keep books this way usually answer a bank's request for information with an export and a few PDFs. Companies that do not often spend weeks reconstructing a year of activity while their account is restricted.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Sending a profit and loss statement whose revenue does not match the deposits on the bank statements provided with it.
- Booking the owner's capital wire as sales, which inflates revenue and confuses both the bank and the tax return.
- Providing statements for only one account when the business also uses a fintech or processor account.
- Submitting optimistic projections at onboarding that real activity quickly exceeds by a wide margin.
- Recording processor payouts net, so fees, refunds and chargebacks are invisible to a reviewer.
- Ignoring a request for information until the deadline, then sending incomplete or inconsistent documents.
Documents and records to prepare
- Statements for all bank, fintech and payment-processor accounts for the period requested
- Profit and loss statement and balance sheet, monthly or year to date
- General ledger or transaction export with categories
- Top customer and supplier lists with countries
- Invoices, contracts or purchase orders for significant receipts
- Source-of-funds evidence and loan or intercompany agreements for owner money
- Most recent federal tax return or information return as filed
- Business plan and 12-month projections for new companies
NYBACS 360° support
How NYBACS helps
- Builds a reconciled ledger that ties bank, fintech and processor activity together before a bank or fintech asks.
- Classifies owner contributions, loans and intercompany funding correctly and documents their source.
- Prepares a review-ready pack of financial statements, transaction detail and supporting invoices.
- Helps draft realistic expected-activity projections for new account applications.
- Supports quick, consistent responses to bank and fintech requests for information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do banks need audited financial statements?
Rarely for an ordinary operating account. Audited statements are more often requested for larger credit facilities or by lenders under loan covenants. Internally prepared, reconciled statements are normally what a deposit account review relies on.
How quickly do I need to answer a bank's request for information?
The request usually states a deadline, and it can be short. Missing it can lead to restrictions on the account or closure, so treat these requests as urgent and ask for more time in writing if a document genuinely takes longer to obtain.
Will a fintech platform ask for the same records as a traditional bank?
The underlying obligations are similar because fintech accounts sit with a partner bank. Fintech platforms often collect more data automatically at signup and ask for documents only when their monitoring flags something, but the records you need ready are much the same.
Should I share my tax returns with the bank?
If asked, yes. Returns let the bank confirm that the figures you report to it match those you report to the IRS. Inconsistencies between the two are a common reason reviews escalate.
Can I prepare these records myself?
Yes, if the books are reconciled and classified consistently. The difficulty for most founders is not producing reports but making them agree with bank statements and tax filings, which is where bookkeeping support adds most value.
