From Statement PDF to Spreadsheet: What Happens to the Transaction Data?

The technology of banking has significantly automatized bookkeeping. However anyone dealing with financial records understands that the automation process doesn’t always perform as expected. The bank feeds are not working correctly, the historic transactions might be unavailable and clients may still send statements in PDF format. Someone has to convert a PDF document that was created to be read as the data that accounting software actually utilizes.

The use of a bank statement converter can cut down on the time-consuming work. Instead of manually entering dates, descriptions, withdrawals, and deposits row-by-row, Docubrew transforms the information on a statement into structured spreadsheet-ready data.

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When a PDF becomes the missing piece

Imagine a bookkeeper making an annual reconciliation for a new client. The accounting platform contains recent transactions, but some of the older months are missing. Fortunately the client has downloaded the original PDF reports.

Typically, rewriting those months could involve many hours of copying figures into the spreadsheet. A PDF bank statement in Excel workflow is a convenient alternative. Docubrew accepts digital PDFs and the paper copies and extracts transaction data for use in spreadsheets.

The reduction of manual transcription is an effective way to lower the possibility of making mistakes for those who have to transfer bank statements to Excel frequently.

Be sure to keep the pages that matter

Bank statements aren’t composed entirely of transactions. A 12-page report could contain a cover sheet, an account summary, disclosures, or notices as well as a number of pages of bank transactions.

Docubrew lets users preview the document, and choose the pages that are relevant before conversion. That makes it easier to convert bank statements to Excel without bringing unrelated statement content into the working dataset.

After the file is processed and opened, it is able to be opened with Excel or integrated into accounting platforms such as QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks and many more.

CSV allows for a variety of accounting workflow

CSV is still useful and is widely used by spreadsheets and databases. Accounting applications also support CSV. Docubrew can convert your bank statement to CSV using the transaction tables contained in the statement.

The same workflow can be used to convert bank statements into CSV to serve a variety of uses, including the reconstruction of the past, starting an undertaking to cleanse unutilized client data, looking into missing transactions or preparing the data for reconciliation.

Accounting firms that must manage clients or multiple statements can benefit from batch processing.

The financial documents you use should be protected by careful security measures

When processing financial records convenience is not the only thing to think about. Bank statements can contain sensitive information about clients Bookkeepers and accountants are also concerned about where processing takes place.

Docubrew has two ways to do this. Its Windows desktop software processes files locally on the user’s personal computer, so the statements aren’t stored for conversion. Users who prefer using a browser-based workflow may opt for the cloud version that is encrypted which allows uploaded files to be instantly deleted within 24 hours.

This distinction distinguishes the platform from the bank statement Excel software that depends exclusively on remote processing.

Turning Document Archives Back Into Working Data

Although PDF statements are great records, they’re difficult to use when transactions need to be sorted or reconciled. They can’t also be moved, changed, or filtered or re-organized. Scanned files add an additional issue, as the transaction information is often only available in images.

Docubrew offers a combination of statement parsing and OCR for documents that have been scanned. It gives accountants businesspeople, and bookkeepers a easy way to convert the financial documents of archives into useful transaction data.

The result is an improvement of a process that was previously arduous and time-consuming. The bank statement will remain as the original financial record but the transaction table is now data you can use.