So, you have taken the leap and invested in mutual funds? That’s great! But your investment journey doesn’t stop there. On the contrary, it has just started. Once you have invested in a mutual fund scheme, it’s important to keep a tab on all your investments and transactions. And a mutual fund statement helps you do just that.
You can think of your mutual fund statement as something like your passbook or bank statement but for your mutual fund investments. It’s simply a summary of all your funds so that you are aware of all your mutual fund transactions and investments. You can either request a mutual fund statement from the Asset Management Company (AMC) and that statement will include information about all the mutual fund investments you have made with them. Alternatively, you can also request the depositary or registrar to send you a Consolidated Account Statement (CAS) to get information on all your mutual fund investments across different fund houses.
Once you have your statement, however, it’s important that you don’t get overwhelmed by all the information and understand how to read it. So, here are the usual mutual fund statement components to know of:
- Personal details: Details like your name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, etc., will be mentioned. Your PAN may also be included as well as the investor category – single investor or joint investor.
- Folio number: Whenever you invest in a mutual fund, you are assigned a unique identification number for your investment known as the folio number. This folio number will be at the top of your mutual fund statement. Next to your folio number, there will also be the statement period specifying the time period for which the transactions are listed.
- Nomination: Every investment has the option of adding a nominee who is the person that will be able to claim the funds in the event of your demise. The mutual fund statement usually won’t show the details of your nominee, if added but will display whether you have added a nominee or not. If you have, the section will be highlighted as “registered”.
- Bank details: This section will include your bank’s name, account number, IFSC code, etc. It’s important to verify your bank details so that at the time of redemption there are no issues or discrepancies.
- Advisor details: If you have invested in the mutual fund directly, without an intermediary like an agent, then this section will display “direct”. Conversely, if you went through an agent, their details such as name and Application Reference Number (ARN) will be highlighted.
- Transaction details: This is the section that will give you an overview of all your mutual fund transactions and is one of the most important parts of your mutual fund statement. It will include the scheme in which you have invested, the transaction date, the transaction type – purchase or redemption – as well as the through which route – Lumpsum, Systematic Investment Plan (SIP), Systematic Transfer Plan (STP), or Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP). Details such as the Net Asset Value (NAV), units, current value, cost value, load, etc., will also be included.
While most investors invest in mutual funds and then practically forget about it for all functional purposes, that’s not a prudent way to go about your wealth creation journey. You receive your CAS by the 10th of every month to go over all the transactions that were carried out in the previous month. It’s essential that you go over your mutual fund statements so that you have a holistic view of all your mutual fund investments and can make strategic investment decisions in a timely manner.