Six beliefs about a statement, checked
Every claim on this page is one a reader is likely to have met, and each is checked against the ten samples rather than against an opinion. Four do not survive contact with the arithmetic, one is partly right, and one is simply true.
- claims
- 6
- false
- 4
- partly
- 1
- true
- 1
Four of the six beliefs below are false on the samples, one is partly right and one is true. The shown balance is not the cash you can withdraw, a low mid-month balance is not a loss, a bonus credit is not money, a missing line was usually reversed rather than deleted, and a statement and a balance can both be correct.
The six beliefs
The balance shown is the money you can withdraw
On the samples a shown balance of 312.00 carried 292.00 of cash and 20.00 of bonus, so 6.4% of the balance was not withdrawable and the cash was 93.6% of the number on the screen.
A low balance mid-month is a loss
The sample month dipped to 70.00 after the stakes and recovered to 312.00 as the returns landed. The running balance fell because 148 stakes were taken against 62 returns, not because money was lost.
A bonus credit is money like any other
It is a line and a real amount, and it is not cash. Of 200 disagreements 58 (29.0%) were a bonus line, which is the second-commonest reason a balance and a statement differ.
A missing line was deleted
A line that is undone stays on the statement and a second line cancels it: 21 of 500 lines were reversed, and each appears as a pair, so 42 of the 500 lines are the two halves of 21 cancellations.
The answer is to re-add the column
It rarely is. Of 200 disagreements only the arithmetic is ever the last suspect: 37.0% were a pending line and 29.0% a bonus line, both found before any re-adding, and the remaining 34.0% were a pair or another product.
A statement and a balance can both be correct
They answer different questions. The statement records what happened and the balance records what is there now, and the two differed for 113 of 300 accounts without either being an error.
Why the four false ones persist
Each of the false beliefs is a reasonable inference from a screen that shows one number. A balance looks like money. A dip looks like a loss. A credit looks like a deposit. A gap looks like a deletion. Each is corrected by reading the type and the state of a line rather than the total.
- Read the type field before the amount, since the type decides what the amount is.
- Check the state of the last few lines before doubting the balance.
- Subtract any bonus from the shown balance before calling it cash.
- Look for a matching amount in the other direction before calling a line missing.
- Compare a whole pair rather than a single line, because half a pair looks wrong.