Bank Statements to Excel - There must be an easier way!! - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

accountonus · Veteran Member

Bank Statements to Excel - There must be an easier way!!

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

where I get bank statements on PDF I use Wondershare PDFElement which turns them into Excel sheets with everything in the right columns (A lot of PDF converters fail on that one!)

Last one I did was a PDF of 900 sheets that it handled in seconds and there wasn't one figure ened up in the wrong column (And we're talking PDF's of photocopies!)

You can download it free.

The perpetual licence is $129. There is a cheaper version but unfortunately you need tohe OCR facility for what you want and that only comes with the professional version.

For what you are doing now, maybe try the free download and see whether that will do your immediate conversion before deciding whether its for you.

HTH,

Shaun.

accountonus · Veteran Member

omg your a life saver!!

sounds fabulous im downloading it now yay!! THANK YOU aww

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

No probs Shoncee,

really hope that it helps.

Don't know what the latest restrictions are on the free version. with my one they were a relatively low number of page conversions before needing to pay for it.

All the best,

Shaun.

johnhemming · Senior Member

Over time it will become really easy to get bank statements via open banking. Best to keep an eye on that.

accountonus · Veteran Member

ive downloaded and trying to work it out. i did the pdf converter to excel saved it then when i opened it was the statement but all in one column and a lot of it un readable? what have i done wrong?

thanks so much for your help aww

accountonus · Veteran Member

i look forward to that!! biggrin

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

CSV?

Am I missing something?

Leger · Master Book-keeper

accountonus wrote:
ive downloaded and trying to work it out. i did the pdf converter to excel saved it then when i opened it was the statement but all in one column and a lot of it un readable? what have i done wrong?

Try the weeny pdf to excel convertor, I had some success with LLoyds bank statements, although I had to tidy the columns up afterwards.

https://www.weenysoft.com/free-pdf-to-excel-converter.html It's free and open source.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

CSV?

Am I still missing the point?

Although the one I got from rubbish Barclays had no balances - what the heck is that about?

accountonus · Veteran Member

csv? is that a program or you mean the format to open?

wonder share doesnt work on the free trial and im worried to pay for it and still not do the one job i need it to do lol

thanks x

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

Shoncee,

Most banks facilitate statement downloads in csv file format (as well as other formats). Look carefully at your transaction screen options. I think Joanne is asking "does your bank not allow CSV format statement downloads?". If it does, she's suggesting that you use that instead. I concur

FWIW. I use Able2Extract if I need to convert PDFs to Excel. Very happy with it.

Regards,

accountonus · Veteran Member

ok great will try that.

my client has sent the all via pdf but will ensure in future i request csv format.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Cheshire wrote:
CSV?

Am I still missing the point?

No, but I was smile I thought you meant convert the PDF to CSV instead of excel, which you can't do.

Yes, totally agree that csv is the best format to download in, if that's practical.

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

Leger wrote:
I thought you meant convert the PDF to CSV instead of excel, which you can't do.

Hi John,

Sorry to contradict, but all the PDF converters I've ever seen do allow conversion to CSV. Able2Extract, for example, allows Excel, CSV, Word, Powerpoint, Publisher, HTML, AutoCAD, Text, Images (BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF) and Searchable PDF (for scanned PDFs).

Regards,

accountonus · Veteran Member

Went with able2extract and the lovely salesmen did the one off licence with £40 discount!! Preferred it most on free trial. Thanks for recommendations Onion xx

VinceH · Expert

"my client has sent the all via pdf but will ensure in future i request csv format"

If the client is sending it to you, I'd be inclined to ask them to send it in both formats. Both can be edited with the right software, but fewer people are equipped to do so to PDFs - whereas CSV can be edited even in a basic text editor like Notepad. The PDF then becomes something to double check against.

Okay, yes, I have trust issues.

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

VinceH wrote:
Okay, yes, I have trust issues.

I'll say! You must have been an auditor in a past life. biggrin

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

accountonus wrote:
Went with able2extract and the lovely salesmen did the one off licence with £40 discount!! Preferred it most on free trial. Thanks for recommendations Onion xx

Rats! I paid full price via the web site. Too used to doing these things in the small hours of the morning when there's no-one to talk to! Still, worth every penny I paid.

VinceH · Expert

"I'll say! You must have been an auditor in a past life."

There was indeed some auditing (though only as a junior) when I started out working for a firm of chartered accountants.

But you can combine that with all the years since of dealing with clients who try to push their luck a bit - some notably more than others. smile

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Onion4Sage wrote:
Leger wrote:
I thought you meant convert the PDF to CSV instead of excel, which you can't do.
Hi John,
Sorry to contradict, but all the PDF converters I've ever seen do allow conversion to CSV.

Oh, my apologies. I use two, the weeney one I mentioned above, which only converts to excel, and another one I use at work, which I've found excellent for converting invoice lists, but not bank statements. (I won't mention the name as when I got it it was freeware but I installed it later on my home computer and it had spyware on it, so was instantly removed) Having just looked at it it can indeed convert to csv, which I never realised.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Onion4Sage wrote:
Shoncee,

I think Joanne is asking "does your bank not allow CSV format statement downloads?". If it does, she's suggesting that you use that instead. I concur

Haha, yes Ian , thank you for translating for me.

Problem banks that drive me mad - Barclays as mentioned. Lloyds - only download 150 trans at a time, how the hell do you know where the cut off is without faffing about.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

accountonus wrote:
ok great will try that.

my client has sent the all via pdf but will ensure in future i request csv format.

Always get the PDF for the year end as well for audit purposes.

------------------------------------

Trust clients????? Never fully.

accountonus · Veteran Member

Ok thank you everyone

YLB-HO · Guru

Santander only supply pdf statements now , no other options. Its good to know they can be converted to csv. I must take a look at my pdf software to see if I can use it convert pdf!

-- Edited by YLB-HO on Saturday 6th of July 2019 02:01:44 PM

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

Hi Frauke,

I've just looked at my Santander account. The transactions screens allow downloads in XLS, QIF, PDF and TXT format.

Regards,

YLB-HO · Guru

Really? None if my clients have been able to do so (unless its a recent change), but then they all seem to be mac users. Perhaps thats the issue!

Thanks, I need to let them know that they should be able to get me xls format statements.

johnhemming · Senior Member

It may be worth your clients seeing what they can get with Chrome rather than Safari. Safari tends to be a bit behind the times from a javascript perspective.

Onion4Sage · Senior Member

YLB-HO wrote:
Really? None if my clients have been able to do so (unless its a recent change), but then they all seem to be mac users. Perhaps thats the issue!
Thanks, I need to let them know that they should be able to get me xls format statements.

Hi Frauke,

Maybe they're only looking in the e-Documents area where there are only PDF statements available. Exactly the same information is available in the transaction listing area in the multiple formats mentioned. Clients can be very literal at times I find. If you ask for statements they will give you statements - and nothing else!

Regards,

YLB-HO · Guru

Thanks Ian. I don't use Santander Myself. I have collection of card readers for other banks, and lost the will to live with the paperwork to have access to client banks accounts myself, so no longer ask for it.

It is hard enough asking for transaction/statements report etc in either csv or xls...... and they dont have a clue, what either means..... and when they do they miss a day/week/month out.....

jordanbe · Newbie

You can use a bank statement converter to automatically import any bank statement to Excel or your accounting software.

meboj99299 · Newbie

I use this tool to convert bank statements to excel: www.convertbankstatement.io

pierogilove · Newbie

OK, I'll be third here, but you can also check took I made: https://bankstatementconverter.org/ this is paid app, but has also free plan.

-- Edited by pierogilove on Sunday 23rd of June 2024 08:29:05 PM

Task4 · Member

I totally get where you're coming from. Dealing with bank statements in Excel is a real chore, especially when you can't just copy and paste from PDFs. I've been there too, and it's so frustrating. One thing that's helped me is using OCR softwareit's like magic for converting PDFs into editable text that you can then tweak in Excel. Tools like Smallpdf or even some online services do a decent job and can save you a ton of time. Give it a shot, it might just make your spreadsheet life a bit easier!

Sasha76 · Member

AutoEntry for the win!!