Figures a contractor can give the bank from its books

Which figures a contractor can export from Achekam when a bank reviews an overdraft or bank guarantee facility, and which it must prepare separately.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Construction businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Contractors live on bank facilities. An overdraft carries the gap between paying wages and suppliers and being paid on a certificate. Bank guarantees, for performance, advance payments or retention, are often a condition of winning the contract in the first place. Every year, and every time a bigger job comes along, the bank's credit team asks for figures.

Some of those figures come straight out of your books. Some do not, and it is better to know which before the relationship manager asks. This article lists what a contractor can take from Achekam, what it has to prepare separately, and a few traps in the menus.

What banks usually ask a contractor for

Requests differ from bank to bank, but a contractor's credit application usually includes some mix of:

the latest annual financial statements;
recent management accounts: an income statement and a balance sheet;
a debtors age analysis, showing who owes you and for how long;
a list of plant and equipment, with values;
a cash flow forecast for the coming months;
the order book: contracts in hand and their remaining value;
details of existing facilities and bank guarantees already issued.

The first five draw on your ledger. The order book and existing facilities come from your contracts and your bank.

Income statement and balance sheet as PDF or CSV

Achekam's management accounts show an income statement for a chosen period beside the period before, and a balance sheet at period end, both added up from your own journals. Both can be exported as PDF or CSV.

Three checks before you send them:

Run the trial balance. It shows each account for all time, for a period or at a date, and says whether debits equal credits. Send nothing until it balances and the month is complete.
Set your own dates. The year-to-date preset starts on 1 January, not your financial year start. If your year starts in March or July, set the period by hand so the bank is not comparing the wrong months.
Explain the profit line. There is no year-end closing entry in the books: profit is not closed to retained earnings and shows as its own line on the balance sheet. A credit analyst may ask about it, so add a sentence saying so.

The debtors age analysis behind the balance sheet

Banks look hard at a contractor's debtors, because unpaid certificates are where contractors fail. Achekam ages receivables into 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120 and over 120 days, with overdue totals.

Take the age analysis from the receivables screens, where it is built from your invoices and receipts. Before sending it, look at anything over ninety days and be ready to explain it: a final account still being agreed, retention not yet due, or a genuine dispute.

The plant and equipment register

If you own your plant, the fixed-asset register holds it. A business adds assets at cost, depreciates them monthly by straight line or reducing balance with a journal each month, and disposes of them with the profit or loss posted. Give the bank a list taken from the register, so it sees each excavator, tipper and concrete mixer with its cost and book value.

Two caveats. Tax wear-and-tear is not worked out by the register, so its book values are accounting values, not tax values. And the fixed-asset register is not part of Business Essentials. Whether you own or hire plant changes the look of the figures a lot; owning or hiring plant explains how.

What the books do not produce yet

Be clear with the bank about what is not there:

No cash flow statement. The books do not produce one. A historical statement of cash flows for the annual financial statements will come from your accountant.
No cash flow forecast. No set of books produces a forecast on its own; it is built from your contracts, your payment certificates and your cost plan. The ACCA's article on cash budgets explains why a business prepares a cash budget and how to build one from expected inflows and outflows, with a worked example.
No year-end close, as above.

For Nigerian and Kenyan contractors there is one more point: the ledger screens show every amount in rand, and the chart of accounts is stored in ZAR, even for a Nigerian or Kenyan business. Ask your accountant to prepare the bank pack in naira or shillings from the CSV exports rather than sending screen PDFs that carry the wrong currency.

The Accounting Reports library lists report types such as a management pack and a debtors age analysis. Generating one creates an empty report in the browser without reading the ledger. Do not send those. Use management accounts for the statements and the receivables screens for the age analysis.

A bank pack checklist

trial balance balanced at the period end;
income statement and balance sheet exported, with your own year dates;
a note on the profit line and on currency, if it applies;
debtors age analysis from receivables, with comments on long-overdue items;
plant list taken from the fixed-asset register;
cash flow forecast prepared separately and signed off;
order book and current facilities from your own records.

The monthly pack partners in a consultancy read, described in a monthly management pack, is a good model for the statements. A clear chart of accounts, as in a chart of accounts for a contractor, makes every one of them easier for a credit analyst to read. Put the checklist together a month before the facility review is due, not the week the bank asks.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.