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My Statement / The bonus line
Twenty pounds that look like cash
Why a bonus credit is a line and not cash
A bonus credit is a real line and a real amount, and it is not money yet. The gap between the shown balance and the cash inside it is the whole of this page: 20.00 of a 312.00 balance, sitting in the statement as a line like any other.
Desk spec
- shown balance
- 312.00
- cash
- 292.00
- bonus
- 20.00
- bonus share
- 6.4%
the lineOne transaction, with a date, a type, an amount and a running balance. The sample month holds 240 of them, and every one belongs to a category.
the running balanceThe balance after each line, in the statement's own order. It is not the balance you can withdraw, because a bonus credit sits inside it: 312.00 shown against 292.00 settled.
the pending lineA line that has been recorded but not settled. Of 500 lines in the sample, 43 were pending and 21 were reversed, against 436 settled.
Direct answerA bonus credit is recorded as a line and counted in the shown balance, but it is not cash until the conditions attached to it are met. On the samples a shown balance of 312.00 carried 292.00 of cash (93.6%) and 20.00 of bonus (6.4%), so the withdrawable balance was 292.00 rather than 312.00.
The two numbers inside one balance
The screen shows one number and the account holds two kinds of money. The statement makes the split visible, because the bonus arrives as a line with a type rather than as an adjustment to the balance: a reader who reads the type can see it, and a reader who reads only the total cannot.
Sample H - the shown balance split into its two parts
| Part | Amount | Share | Withdrawable |
|---|
| cash | 292.00 | 93.6% | yes |
| bonus | 20.00 | 6.4% | only once its conditions are met |
| the shown balance | 312.00 | 100.0% | the sum, not a permission |
| one balance | 312.00 | 100.0% | 292.00 of it is cash |
sample H - the split, in money
shown balance = 312.00
cash = 292.00 -> 292.00 / 312.00 = 93.6%
bonus = 20.00 -> 20.00 / 312.00 = 6.4%
so a reader who reads the screen alone is 20.00 optimistic,
and a reader who reads the statement sees why:
the bonus is one line on the 27th, and its type says so.
When a bonus line becomes cash
A bonus line turns into cash by one of two routes, and the statement shows which: the conditions are met and the bonus is converted, or the conditions are not met and the bonus is removed. The second is the reversal on the next page.
sample H and D - a bonus line, two endings
the bonus on the samples = 20.00, on 6 of the month's 240 lines (2.5%)
route 1, conditions met:
the bonus line stays and the balance stays 312.00; the cash becomes
312.00 once the line is converted, so the withdrawable figure rises by 20.00
route 2, conditions not met:
a second line removes the 20.00, and the balance returns to 292.00
- which is the same number the cash was all along
and bonus lines are 6 / 240 = 2.5% of the month, but
they are the lines most likely to be read as cash:
58 / 200 disagreements in sample C were a bonus line, or 29.0%.
Read a bonus line before spending it
- Find the bonus line by its type, not by its amount, which looks like any other credit.
- Subtract it from the shown balance to get the cash you can withdraw.
- Read the conditions attached to it, since they decide whether it converts or is removed.
- Do not stake a bonus line as if it were cash, because a loss of bonus is not a loss of cash.
- Look for the second line that removes it if the conditions are not met.
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