Account statements are practically useless

[PhabGuy]

Does anyone else agree with me that the PayPal account statements are practically useless. I must agree with a previous poster (from 2013) that the PayPal "statements" are not statements at all. For comparison, just look at any statement produced by any major bank or credit card company to see how it's donw. A statement would have, at a minimum, the following characteristics:

- represents all transactions for a specific period of time, usually a month

- show opening and closing balances, in the account's native currency

- show all deposit transactions (sales, transfers of money into the account)

- show all withdrawal transactions (refunds, transfers of money out of the account)

- for transactions in a currency other than the account's native currency, show the transaction currency and the converted amount in the account's native currency.

- provide a sum of all deposit transactions and sum of all withdrawal transactions for ease in doing reconciliations

As just one example of the problem with these "statements", they do not show transfers from my bank account as separate line items. These should be shown as separate line items because they represent a separate movement of money between PayPal and an external bank, and because they appear on my bank statement as a line item. It is therefore unnecessarily difficult and confusing to reconcile the PayPal activity each month against my accounting software.

PayPal, please, take a look at this issue and design a truly business-friendly, useful account statement mechanisn, like all the other banks and credit card companies.

Thanks!

[FelixRaleigh]

Greetings.

How did you get the PayPal Statement?

I have been trying to find the feature to get a statement, as in a bank statement, but of my PayPal account.

Thanks.

[PhabGuy]

Greetings! Login to your account, click "Activity" in the menu at the top, then click the "Detailed" button at the top right. Be sure the report says "Statements" at the top, just below the "Detailed" button. You are now looking at what PayPal thinks is a statement of the account. It does show the running balance, but otherwise it is not well suited for reconciliation with an accounting package. Ideally, a "statement" would represent a single month of activity, showing the closing balance of the previous month and the new closing balance. It would provide a summary and count of deposits and withdrawals/payments for cross-checking. It would be nice if fees were on separate lines, since I record my banking fees as a separate expense item in my accounting program. Thus, the "Net" column isn't meaningful for me.

A statement from any major bank should serve as a model.

[FelixRaleigh]

Thank you for the info.

I got to the PayPal Download History Page. 

I agree. It should be more detailed.