Take a look at a lengthy bank account statement and you’ll often find more than just the transaction ledger. You may find account summaries and notices as well as explanatory texts including disclosures, pages and other information that provide the information required by a bookkeeper.
The processing of all data isn’t necessary if the goal of the project is to move the transactional data to an accounting software or spreadsheet. To make a more targeted workflow, identify the pages that can be useful prior to creating the output.
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It’s not a sign of more data.
Take a look at a business that is reviewing a few months of banking transactions. Each month’s PDF may contain several pages, yet only a portion of each file contains the table of transactions required for accounting process.
A solution is to manually copy these tables, however this may be a slow process and could cause typing mistakes. Businesses can convert bank statement data into Excel but only the pages that are relevant.
Docubrew’s page preview lets a user to view and decide what data to process. Cover sheets, disclosures, and other pages that don’t need to be processed can be left out.
Previewing First Gives You More Control
Automation is best utilized when the person using it can observe what’s going on.
Instead of performing a complete document conversion, Docubrew lets users preview statement pages before completing the conversion. The program extracts figures directly from the source statement instead of using estimates for financial figures.
When converting a PDF bank statement to Excel, that preview creates an opportunity to make sure the appropriate pages have been selected and examine the extracted information before downloading the result.
This is a basic but crucial checkpoint when it concerns financial documents.
The Export should be shaped by the Destination
What are your plans regarding the acquisition?
Excel can be useful if bookkeepers need to sort the data, look over rows, or alter the data. CSV may be a better option if you’re transferring data to a different system. Docubrew can also output QBO.
If a person needs to convert a bank statement into CSV format then they can create a CSV instead of constructing an Excel worksheet first and later manually changing the formats.
Docubrew’s output is designed for use with accounting platforms like QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks in addition to spreadsheet-based workflows.
Paper statements from the scanner can be included in the same workflow
The conversion can be made on any PDF file, not only digitally generated ones.
Sometimes older statements are only available as paper scans. Docubrew can scan PDF documents, including statements.
This is a great option to keep a historical record of bookkeeping in which the most recent statements were digitalized while older statements were scanned off of paper. Instead of creating two separate processes, documents can be processed using the same conversion process and then analyzed prior to export.
Processing locally, or using the Cloud
The way financial documents are handled can be as crucial as the results.
Docubrew’s Windows desktop application runs conversions locally, storing client documents on the computer. Cloud is a choice for those who prefer to work with documents via browsers. Docubrew claims that the cloud option erases the uploaded and converted files within 24 hours.
In the end, converting a bank statement into Excel doesn’t have to mean loading every page of a PDF into a tool and hoping that the output will be beneficial.
Start by reading those pages that contain the information you need. Look at what’s missing. Choose the format to complete the next task in accounting.
A better financial workflow may start not by more processing instead, but by doing less.