TLDR So I had access to my base reports (though EX cut off after 10 pages on my saved copy, whoops) but the data is pretty darned conclusive: the bureaus do not update balances in real time, but they do carry the date as reported by the lender.
There is indeed a lag, and it's not all on the monitoring solutions. Enjoy, both bureaus "backdate" the entries, awesomesauce!
EDIT: Now with EX, and yup, same issue there.
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I have a DCU credit card that just happened to line up on a convenient boundary with my pulls:
DCU according to TU's 3/9 report updated 2/29
DCU according to EQ's 3/7 report updated 2/29
DCU according to EX's 3/9 report updated 2/29
All of them (TU, EQ, EX) show the soft inquiries from various different monitoring solutions: Credit Karma (EQ/TU), and myFICO. Note the date on these:
TU:
<name redacted> via KARMA/TRANSUNION INTERAC
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FAIRISAAC via MY FICO
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The same is shown on Equifax:
Credit Karma:
ND−Credit Karma, Inc 03/03/2016
760 Market St Fl 10 San Francisco, CA 94102−2300
myFICO:
Fair Isaac 03/02/2016 10/08/2015 07/04/2015 06/05/2015 05/29/2015
200 Smith Ranch Rd San Rafael, CA 94903−5551
The same is shown on Experian with the MF soft pull from the 3B report.
Account†name
MYFICO CONSUMER SERVICES
03/02/2016
Date†of†request®s©
2665 LONG LAKE RD
ROSEVILLE, MN 55113
No†phone†number†available
The kicker, NONE of these monitoring solutions had the DCU account updated, both showed a last update of Jan 2016 (MF truncates the date, CK has it explicitly as 1/31/16 which is precisely correct for DCU's reporting on the last day of the month). MF was this same Jan 2016 for all 3 bureaus.
I suspect any third party implementation, and even the ones sponsored by the bureaus themselves (MF's Equifax monitoring is mostly if not all just Scorewatch, which Equifax OEM's to DCU and others), are going to have this issue.
This kind of appears to be the state of the market at this point, the bureaus aren't real time, so we can't expect our monitoring solutions to be such.
