A business bank statement and a personal one look alike: dates, descriptions, amounts and a running balance. The questions a lender asks of them are different. For a company the question is how much it really earns and whether its cash flow can carry a facility. For a person it is whether the salary is real and regular, and how much of it is already spoken for by debt.
PaperWork BSA has two modes for this, Business and Individual. Both use the same bank parsers and balance checks; they build different reports from the transactions. This article shows what changes between them and when to use each, with a recording of both on synthetic statements.
Key Takeaways
- Both modes use the same statement parsers and the same running-balance check. The mode decides what is built on top.
- Business mode separates customer receipts from loans, own-account transfers and related-party money, then reports cash flow metrics and risk checks.
- Individual mode finds the salary month by month, the loans, cards and BNPL already paid, and the debt burden against the 50% limit.
- The company profile is the key input for Business mode; the declared income and card limits are the key inputs for Individual mode.
- Neither mode gives a credit score. Both return JSON over the API and an Excel report.
Business mode
Business mode is for SME lending, trade finance and merchant underwriting. Its first job is separating revenue from the rest: a loan disbursement, a transfer from the company's other account and money from a sister company all raise credits without being sales.
What it produces:
- Net business credits and around 50 cash flow metrics, each split by month and marked as verified, estimated or unavailable.
- 12 risk checks, including round-tripping, pass-through money, cash surges, returned payments, large one-off credits and new borrowing.
- Related parties and own accounts kept apart from revenue, taken from a company profile you add before the analysis.
- Review mode, where an analyst confirms unclear classifications and changes transaction types before the result is used.
For the full method, see bank statement analysis for lenders, which walks through a worked SME example.
Individual mode
Individual mode is for personal loans, credit cards, auto finance and BNPL. It takes the same transactions and reads them as an applicant's finances.
What it produces:
- A salary calendar: the employer, WPS or transfer, the usual pay day and the amount for each month, with variable pay kept out of regular income.
- Debt payments: loans, credit cards and BNPL with the months paid and the typical monthly amount.
- Debt burden against the 50% limit, an estimated payment capacity after normal spending, a field to test a new payment, and a personal loan ceiling of 20 times salary over up to 48 months.
- Declared income and card limits checked against the statement, with cards counted at a share of their limit.
- 17 review signals, from a late or stopped salary to money sent back and forth with the same person.
The method behind each figure is in individual bank statement analysis.
Side by side
| Business | Individual | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical use | SME loans, trade finance, merchant cash advance | Personal loans, cards, auto finance, BNPL |
| Main question | How much does the business really earn? | Is the salary real, and how much is already owed? |
| Key input | Company profile: own accounts, related parties | Declared income, card limits |
| Income figure | Net business credits | Regular monthly salary, median of six months |
| Excluded from income | Loans, own-account transfers, related parties, reversals | Bonuses and variable pay, transfers from people, loan money |
| Debt view | Loan and card repayments, new borrowing | Each loan, card and BNPL plan; debt burden ratio |
| Affordability | Cash flow metrics by month | DBR against 50%, payment capacity, loan ceiling |
| Checks | 12 risk checks | 17 review signals |
| Output | Dashboard, Excel, API | Dashboard, Excel, API |
What both modes share
- Parsing. Each supported statement layout has its own parser, and the running balance is checked row by row. A statement that does not reconcile is stopped rather than guessed.
- Several statements in one job. Accounts and months are combined; overlapping periods are de-duplicated and missing months are listed.
- Transactions you can open. Every metric and signal leads to the rows behind it.
- The limits of a statement. A statement shows what passed through the accounts submitted. It does not prove that the PDF is genuine; that is a job for document fraud detection. And neither mode produces a credit score: the decision stays with your policy.
Which mode to choose
Choose by who is borrowing, not by whose name is on the account.
- A company applies: Business. Add the company profile with its own accounts and related parties first.
- A salaried person applies: Individual. Add the declared income and the card limits from the application or bureau report.
- A sole proprietor or freelancer applies: it depends on what you are underwriting. Business mode measures trading receipts; Individual mode looks for a salary and will flag that none was found. Many lenders run the business account in Business mode and the personal account in Individual mode.
FAQ
Is the parsing different between the modes?
Almost not. Both use the same parsers and balance checks. Individual mode also keeps the account holder's name and tolerates small layout changes that do not touch amounts.
Does Individual mode use the company profile?
No. It uses the declared income and card limits instead. Moves between the applicant's own submitted accounts are recognised from the statements.
Can I get both reports through the API?
Yes. Both come from the BSA API as JSON, and both are in the Excel export.
Does either mode score the applicant?
No. They report income, debt, affordability and the transactions behind each signal. Scoring and the credit decision belong to your policy.
See both modes on your own files
Bring one business and one personal file and compare the two reports with your current review. Request a demo or see PaperWork BSA.