How to Read Your CAS (Consolidated Account Statement): A Line-by-Line Guide

Every mutual fund investor in India gets the same document, usually as a password-protected PDF that lands in email and is never opened: the Consolidated Account Statement, or CAS. It is the single most useful page you own as an investor. It lists every fund you hold, across every fund house, under your PAN — what you paid, what it is worth, and what has happened to it. This guide explains who sends it, how to get one whenever you want, and how to read it line by line.

The Basics

What a CAS is, and who sends it

A CAS is one statement that brings together all your mutual fund folios — across every fund house — that are linked to your PAN. If you also have a demat account, it can include your shares, bonds and ETFs too. Before it existed, you received a separate statement from each fund house and had to piece the picture together yourself.

Who sends it depends on whether you have a demat account:

• You have a demat account: the depositories, NSDL or CDSL, send a combined CAS covering both your demat holdings and your mutual fund folios. If you have demat accounts with both, the depository holding the older account is the one that sends it.
• You have no demat account: the mutual fund registrars, CAMS and KFintech, send a mutual-fund-only CAS.

One subtlety: mutual fund units held inside a demat account appear in the demat section of the depository CAS, not in the folio section. If a fund seems to be “missing”, check where it is held.

When it arrives

Your activity	What you receive	When
Any transaction in the month (SIP, purchase, redemption, switch)	Monthly CAS	Shortly after the month ends
Holdings but no transactions for six months	Half-yearly CAS	By mid-April and mid-October (for the half-years ending March and September)
You want one now	On-demand CAS	Within minutes, by email, for a period you choose

The statement goes to the email address registered against your folios or demat account. If your folios carry an old email ID or no email at all, that is the first thing to fix.

Getting One

How to download your CAS on demand

You do not have to wait for the monthly email. You can generate a CAS online for free:

• MFCentral (run jointly by CAMS and KFintech) or either registrar’s own website, for a mutual-fund-only CAS. Choose Detailed (every transaction) or Summary (holdings only), pick a period, and set a password for the PDF.
• NSDL’s or CDSL’s CAS portal, if you have a demat account and want demat and mutual funds together.

The statement arrives as a password-protected PDF. For statements you request online, the password is the one you choose; for statements sent automatically, it is usually built from your PAN — the covering email says which. Ask for the Detailed version whenever you can: it is the only one that shows each transaction with its date, which is what you need for tax and for working out your real return. It is also the version our free FactFinances app reads, whether it comes from MFCentral or from NSDL or CDSL.

Reading It

Reading your CAS, section by section

Layouts differ slightly between NSDL, CDSL and the registrars, but every CAS carries the same building blocks.

Section	What it shows	What to check
Investor details	Name, PAN, email, mobile, address; KYC status	Email and mobile are current; KYC shows as valid
Portfolio summary	Total cost and current value, often split by fund house	The total matches what you think you own
Folio and scheme header	Fund house, folio number, scheme name, plan (Direct or Regular), option (Growth or IDCW), ISIN, nominee status	Plan and option are the ones you intended; a nominee is registered
Transactions	Date, type (purchase, SIP, redemption, switch, dividend), amount, NAV, units, stamp duty	Every line is something you did; no unexpected redemptions
Closing balance	Units held, NAV and its date, cost value, market value	Market value = units × NAV; cost value is what you actually paid
Half-yearly cost disclosure	Average total expense ratio of the plan for the half-year, and the gross commission paid to your distributor in rupees (Regular plans only)	What you are paying, in plain numbers

That last row surprises people the first time they see it. Since 2016, SEBI has required the September and March statements to show, for each scheme you hold, the average expense ratio of your plan and the commission the fund house paid to your distributor for that half-year, in rupees. It is already inside the expense ratio, not an extra charge. The idea is simple: you should be able to see what you pay and judge whether the service you get is worth it. For more on costs, see our guide to how to invest in mutual funds, which explains Direct and Regular plans.

What the commission pays for

Every scheme comes in two versions. A Direct plan has no distributor and a lower expense ratio. A Regular plan has a slightly higher expense ratio because part of it pays a mutual fund distributor — like us — and the half-yearly CAS shows you exactly how much, in rupees. Nothing about this is hidden, and nothing should be.

What that commission pays for is not the fund itself — the same fund is available Direct — but the work around it:

• Choosing what fits. Matching the fund category, plan and option to your goal, time horizon and tax position, rather than chasing last year’s top performer.
• Staying invested when it is hardest. For most investors the biggest cost is not the expense ratio; it is selling in a crash or stopping a SIP at the bottom. A steady, experienced voice at those moments is often worth more than the fee.
• The paperwork. KYC, nominations, bank-mandate changes, consolidating folios and redemptions done correctly.
• Your family, later. If something happens to you, someone who already knows every folio can help your family claim the units — a process that can otherwise drag on for months.
• A yearly review. Checking the portfolio against your goals and rebalancing when the mix drifts.

If you are confident doing all of that yourself, a Direct plan costs less, and you deserve to know it. If you value that help, the commission in a Regular plan is how it is paid for. Either way, the CAS lets you see the cost and decide with full information — which is exactly why it is worth reading.

Worked Example

A worked example: Sunita’s CAS

Sunita, a bank officer in Ranchi, opens her half-yearly CAS. Stripped of the headers, the closing balances read like this (scheme names are generic; the structure is what matters):

Folio	Scheme · plan · option	Units	NAV	Cost value	Market value
A	Flexi cap fund · Regular · Growth	1,250.432	₹68.40	₹70,000	₹85,530
B	Large cap index fund · Direct · Growth	3,410.115	₹24.12	₹75,000	₹82,252
C	Liquid fund · Direct · Growth	18.226	₹3,120.50	₹55,000	₹56,874
	Total			₹2,00,000	₹2,24,656

What she can read straight off the page: her total gain is ₹24,656, or 12.3% on what she put in. Folio A is up 22.2%, B 9.7% and C 3.4%. About a quarter of her money (₹56,874 of ₹2.25 lakh) sits in a liquid fund — which is her emergency money, so that is intended. Folio A is a Regular plan, so her half-yearly statement also shows the commission paid on it.

What she cannot read off the page is whether 12.3% is good. Folio A was a SIP over three years; folio C was a single deposit eight months ago. Percentages on cost ignore when the money went in. For that she needs the transaction dates from the detailed CAS and an XIRR calculation — which is exactly what our app does from the same PDF. To judge the funds themselves, compare each against its benchmark, as our guide to evaluating mutual fund performance explains.

Checklist

Five things to check every time it arrives

• Transactions you do not recognise. Any redemption, switch or change of bank you did not ask for needs a call to the fund house the same day.
• Nominee status. A folio with no nominee can turn a simple claim into months of paperwork for your family.
• Plan and option. “Direct” or “Regular”, “Growth” or “IDCW” — check each one matches what you meant to buy. IDCW pays out part of your money and is taxed at your slab rate.
• Duplicate folios. Several folios in the same fund house make tracking harder; the fund house can consolidate them on request.
• Missing holdings. If a fund you own is not there, its folio may carry a different PAN, email or holding pattern — or the units may sit in your demat account.

What a CAS does not show

It covers mutual funds and demat holdings only. Your EPF, PPF, NPS, bank deposits, insurance policies and gold are not in it. It also does not show your annualised return (XIRR) or which lots are short-term and long-term for tax — those you work out from the detailed transactions. Our guide to mutual fund taxation shows how; common mutual fund mistakes lists what the statement often reveals.

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General information only, not personalised advice. Ujjwal Tiwary, AMFI-registered Mutual Fund Distributor, ARN-144500.