A client's statement lands as a PDF. Twelve columns, two pages, a number at the bottom smaller than anyone hoped.

The job here is not to audit it, it is to read it. A statement is not a mystery. It is a recipe, applied in a fixed order: what was earned, then what is taken off, then what is held back, then what is left.

Learn the order and the page stops being intimidating. It becomes a checklist an adviser can run line by line.