Why Bank Statement Converters Get the Numbers Wrong (and How to Catch It)

A bank statement looks like a neat table. Inside the PDF, it is not one. It is a page of small pieces of text placed at exact positions, with nothing that says "this number belongs to that row". To get it into a spreadsheet, a program has to guess the table back from where the text sits. Most of the time the guess is right. Sometimes it is not, and the spreadsheet still looks fine.

Where the mistakes come from

• Columns that drift. A money-out figure lands in the money-in column because the amounts are right-aligned and the headings are not. The total is now wrong by twice that amount.
• Descriptions that wrap. A long description runs over two lines. A weak converter makes the second line a new transaction, or glues it to the wrong one.
• Number formats. "1.234,56" in a French or German statement is one thousand two hundred, not one point two. "(45.00)" and "45.00 DR" are both money going out.
• Dates. "03/02" is the 3rd of February in London and the 2nd of March in New York. One wrong guess reorders a whole month.
• Copy and paste. Copying from a PDF viewer usually puts every value on its own line, so you end up rebuilding the table by hand, which is where typing mistakes creep in.

The check that catches all of it

Every statement prints a running balance. Each row's balance should equal the balance before it, plus money in, minus money out. That rule gives you a free test of the whole conversion. If one figure was misread, swapped or dropped, the balances stop adding up at exactly that row.

Doing this by hand means adding a formula column and scanning hundreds of rows. A converter should do it for you, to the cent, and tell you which rows fail.

Convert and check in one step

Orilami's Bank Statement to Excel Converter reads your PDF statement into date, description, money out, money in and balance columns, then recalculates every running balance. Rows that do not add up are shown in red, so you can correct them in the preview before you download the Excel or CSV file. It opens password-protected statements, and the statement is read in your browser, never uploaded.

Who needs this

Bookkeepers and accountants entering a client's year of statements. Small business owners and freelancers preparing their taxes. People applying for a mortgage, a loan or a visa who must show their finances in a spreadsheet. Lawyers and auditors reviewing a person's spending. For all of them, a figure that is quietly wrong is worse than no spreadsheet at all.

A spreadsheet that looks right is not the same as one that is right. Let the balances prove it.