Welcome to Statement
Welcome to Statement
Your finance operating systemStatement connects to the accounting, banking, and reporting tools you already use, and turns your questions into answers, automations, and reports - without you switching between five different tabs. This guide will help you get set up, understand what Statement can do, and find the workflows that match how your team operates. Start here based on your role:
- Founder - Monitoring cash flow
- Finance team - Preparing board reports
- Virtual CFO - Managing multiple clients
What Statement is
Statement is a finance operating system: a single place where your accounting data, banking data, and reporting live together and can be queried, automated, and acted on in plain language. Instead of pulling numbers from your accounting software, cross-checking your bank feed, and building a report in a spreadsheet, you ask Statement directly - and it already knows your chart of accounts, your entities, and how your business is structured. With Statement, you can:
- Ask "What's our runway?" and get a real, current answer, not a spreadsheet you have to build
- Generate a board-ready report in minutes instead of assembling one by hand
- Get alerted the moment a client's AR goes overdue, before it becomes a problem
How Statement is different from accounting software
Statement doesn't replace your accounting software - it connects to it.
| Accounting software | Statement | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Records and categorizes transactions | Interprets, explains, and acts on your financial data |
| Scope | One ledger, one system | Synthesizes across accounting, banking, spreadsheets, and reporting tools |
| Interaction | Forms, manual entry, fixed reports | Plain-language questions and automations |
| Output | Static reports you build yourself | Answers, reports, and actions generated on demand |
If your accounting software is the system of record, Statement is the layer that makes that record useful without you having to manually assemble it every time. ## How Statement works 1. **Connect** - Link your accounting, banking, and reporting tools to Statement. 2. **Understand** - Statement learns your chart of accounts, entities, and business context so it can interpret data the way you would. 3. **Ask, automate, or build** - Ask a question in plain language for an instant answer, or describe the report, dashboard, or automation you want and Statement's App Builder turns it into a working finance application you can reuse and share. ## Your first 5 minutes 1. **Sign up and create your workspace** - Set up your Statement account and name your workspace (your business or client's name). 2. **Connect your accounting tool** - Link QuickBooks, Xero, or your accounting system of choice. Statement pulls in your chart of accounts and transaction history automatically. 3. **Ask your first question** - Try something like "What's our cash balance today?" or "How much revenue did we make last month?" - Statement answers using the data it just connected. 4. **See it in context** - Notice that Statement already understands your accounts and entities, so you don't need to explain your business before asking. 5. **Explore what's next** - Head to Building your first app to turn a question you ask often into a saved dashboard or automation.