Not Every Page of a Bank Statement Belongs in Your Spreadsheet

Take a look at a lengthy bank account statement and you’ll often find more than a transaction ledger. Account summaries, explanations, notices and disclosures can be found in the information the bookkeeper requires.

When the only goal is to get transaction data into an accounting or spreadsheet system then it isn’t required to handle all data. A more targeted workflow begins with identifying the most useful pages prior to creating the output file.

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The number of pages on a page doesn’t automatically mean more useful data

Imagine a company reviewing the banking activity of several months. Each PDF for the month could have several pages, yet only a portion of each file contains the transactions tables required for accounting tasks.

A solution is to manually copy those tables, however this may be a slow process and could result in typing mistakes. Businesses can also transform their bank statements in Excel and only include relevant pages.

Docubrew provides a page preview that allows users to review the PDF and decide which pages are processed. You can eliminate disclosures, cover sheets, or any other pages you don’t need.

You are more in control when you first preview

Automation is most effective when the person who is using it can inspect what’s happening.

Docubrew’s preview feature allows users to see the pages of the financial statement before they convert it. The software extracts figures from the source statement instead of estimating the financial values.

The preview is a great way to ensure that the pages have been chosen correctly and also to check the data you’ve extracted prior to download the final output.

It’s a straightforward but vital checkpoint when it comes to financial documents.

The Destination Should Shape the Export

What do you have in mind regarding the sale?

Excel can be practical when a bookkeeper needs to look over rows, categorize data or manipulate the information in a spreadsheet. If the information is heading into a different system, CSV may fit the workflow better. Docubrew allows QBO output.

Anyone who wants to convert a bank statements into CSV such as, for instance, can generate CSV instead of creating a CSV rather than creating an Excel workbook in the beginning and manually changing formats following that.

Docubrew’s output was designed to be used with accounting platforms such as QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks and spreadsheet-based workflows.

Scanned papers can be able to be seamlessly integrated into the workflow

Digitally generated PDFs aren’t the only PDFs that can be converted.

Companies may have older statements available only in paper scans. Docubrew can process scanned PDF documents, which includes statements.

It can be very helpful for working on accounting historical projects, where certain documents were digitized, while others were scanned directly from paper. Instead of creating two different processes, documents can be processed through the same general conversion method and reviewed before being exported.

Process Locally or Use Cloud

The presentation of financial documents is just as important as how they are interpreted.

Docubrew’s Windows Desktop application can convert documents locally on the client’s computer. For those who prefer using a browser, the cloud option encrypts uploaded documents and, according to Docubrew, automatically deletes the files that have been uploaded and transformed within 24 hours.

Ultimately, converting a bank statement to Excel shouldn’t mean feeding every page of every PDF into a tool and hoping the output is useful.

Begin by reading the pages that have the information you need. Review what information is being deleted. Choose the format for the next accounting task.

Sometimes a more efficient financial workflow is not achieved by processing more or more, but by intentionally processing less.