Citizens Bank Personal Financial Statement: Fill It In

Quick Answer: A bank personal financial statement, such as the form Citizens Bank or the former Bank of the West gives loan applicants, lists your assets, liabilities, income and contingent liabilities, and you sign it as true. Fill each line from a real document: bank and brokerage statements for assets, loan statements for debts. SBA Form 413 is the public template most bank forms resemble.

A personal financial statement (PFS) is a signed summary of what you own, what you owe and what you earn, which a bank asks for when you apply for a business loan or sign a personal guarantee. Lenders such as Citizens Bank have their own versions, but the lines follow the same pattern as the SBA's Form 413, so filling one is mostly a matter of gathering the right statements.

Which form are you filling in?

Start by confirming the exact form your lender wants. Three situations are common:

• A bank's in-house form. Citizens Bank's form comes from the banker handling your application. We could not load Citizens' public website while writing this guide, so ask your loan officer for the current version rather than using an old copy found online.
• SBA Form 413. If the loan carries an SBA guarantee, the lender may ask for the SBA's own form. The current edition shows OMB approval number 3245-0188 and an expiration date of 08/31/2027. You can download it from the SBA's Form 413 page.
• A legacy form from a bank that no longer exists. Bank of the West is the usual example. FDIC records show Bank of the West, San Francisco, merged into BMO Harris Bank National Association effective February 2, 2023. A Bank of the West PFS template is out of date; ask BMO which form it now uses.

The rest of this guide uses Form 413's structure, because it is public and most bank forms mirror it.

Who has to complete one?

For 7(a) loans, 504 loans and surety bonds, Form 413 says it is completed by each proprietor, general partner, managing member of an LLC, each owner of 20% or more of the equity (including the assets of the owner's spouse and any minor children), and anyone providing a guaranty on the loan. For SBA disaster business loans the list is similar, with the guaranty trigger being an unlimited guaranty. Women-Owned Small Business and 8(a) applicants have their own rules on the first page of the form.

Bank forms for conventional loans usually ask the same people, especially guarantors. If you are signing a personal guarantee, expect a PFS.

How do you fill in each line from your statements?

Form 413 asks you to omit cents and to give personal, not business, figures. Use the most recent statement for each item and keep copies; the lender will likely ask for them.

Section 1, Source of Income, asks for salary, net investment income, real estate income and other income. Your pay stubs or last return supply salary; brokerage and rental records the rest. Alimony or child support goes under "Other Income" only if you want it counted.

Contingent liabilities are debts you might owe: amounts as endorser or co-maker, legal claims and judgments, the provision for federal income tax, and other special debt. Co-signing a relative's car loan belongs here.

Worked example: getting to net worth

Total assets minus total liabilities gives net worth, and on Form 413 net worth plus total liabilities must equal total assets. Suppose your statements show:

Net worth is $517,900 − $265,800 = $252,100, and $265,800 + $252,100 = $517,900, so the columns balance. In Excel or Google Sheets, put assets in B2:B7 and liabilities in D2:D4, then use =SUM(B2:B7), =SUM(D2:D4) and =SUM(B2:B7)-SUM(D2:D4) for net worth. Our guide to tracking net worth from bank statements builds the same sheet month by month.

Getting the numbers out of the statements

Most PFS lines need only a closing balance, which you can read straight off a statement. The work grows when the lender also asks for bank statements covering several months to test what you wrote, or when you hold many accounts. Two habits help:

1. Use the same "as of" date for every figure. Form 413 asks for the date the information is current as of, and requires it to be within 90 days of submission for disaster loans or 120 days for 7(a), 504, surety, 8(a) and WOSB applications.
2. Reconcile against the statements you will submit. A lender who sees $22,000 in savings on the form and $9,000 on the statement will ask why.

If you are compiling balances from a stack of PDF statements, putting them into one spreadsheet makes the cross-check quick. QuickBankConvert converts statement PDFs into CSV or Excel rows, with the closing balance shown above the preview; see pricing for plan limits. Our personal financial audit guide shows how to review a year of statements in the same way before a lender does.

What are you certifying when you sign?

The signature block is not a formality. Form 413's certification says you confirm, under penalty of criminal prosecution, that the information is true and complete to the best of your knowledge, and you authorize the SBA, lender or surety company to make inquiries to verify it. The form's notice lists the federal statutes that apply to false statements, including 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and, for statements to a federally insured institution, 18 U.S.C. § 1014.

In practice:

• Round honestly; estimates for property or vehicles should be defensible.
• Do not leave off a debt because it is small or in someone else's name if you guaranteed it.
• If the form lacks space, Form 413 tells you to attach sheets, identify each as part of the statement, and sign it.

Lenders reviewing a business loan read the PFS alongside business bank statements; our guide to the business bank statement loan explains what they look for there. This guide explains the form, not whether a given loan is right for you; a loan officer or accountant can advise on that.

Related guides

• Personal financial audit using bank statements
• How to track your net worth using bank statements
• Business bank statement loan: what lenders read