There’s more to a long bank statement than simply a transaction ledger. You may find account overviews, notices, explanatory text, disclosures, and other pages that contain the information a bookkeeper actually needs.
When the only goal is to import transaction information into an accounting or spreadsheet system then it isn’t necessary to process all of the data. To ensure a streamlined workflow, determine the pages that can be useful before generating the output.
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It’s Not a Significance of More Data.
Look at the company that is looking over its banking operations over a period of months. The monthly PDFs could contain 10 or more pages, but only a small portion of the document will contain the necessary transaction tables to record the financial transactions.
Manual copying of these tables can be a solution, but is slow and susceptible to mistakes. Businesses can instead convert bank statements to Excel while limiting the conversion to relevant pages.
Docubrew’s page preview lets the user review and decide what to process. Disclosures, cover sheets and other pages that aren’t required could be left out.
Gain More Control by Previewing the first
Automated systems are most effective when they are controlled by the user.
Docubrew’s preview feature permits users to look at the contents of the statement before converting it. The program extracts data from the source statement rather than estimating financial values.
This preview allows you to ensure that the right pages are chosen, and to examine the extracted data prior to downloading.
The checkpoint is easy, but it’s important when dealing with financial records.
The Export’s Shape should be determined by the destination
Next, you will be asked if you plan to make of your transactions.
Excel is a great tool when bookkeepers need to sort the data, look over rows or alter data. CSV is the better choice if the data will be moving into a different system. Docubrew can support QBO output.
Someone who would like to convert their bank statement to CSV can do this through the creation of the CSV file instead of first creating an Excel document, and manually altering its format.
Docubrew can be used with accounting software, such as QuickBooks®, Xero®, and FreshBooks®, as well spreadsheet-based workflows.
Scanned Paper Statements and Scanned Documents Can Be Part of the Workflow
The use of selective conversion isn’t restricted to PDFs that are digitally created.
Businesses sometimes have older statements accessible only as paper scans. Docubrew comes with OCR for PDF scans and allows these documents to be processed too.
It can be beneficial during historical bookkeeping projects where recent records are digital while earlier documents were scanned from paper. Instead of creating two separate workflows, documents can be processed in the same process of conversion and then analyzed prior to export.
Processing Locally or in the Cloud
It is important to consider how documents are handled and their output.
Docubrew’s Windows desktop application handles the conversion locally, and stores client documents on the computer. If you’re a fan of using a browser the cloud option can encrypt uploaded documents and, as per Docubrew the program, deletes uploaded and converted documents within 24 hours.
Ultimately, converting a bank statement into Excel shouldn’t mean feeding every page of a PDF into an Excel spreadsheet and hoping that the output is helpful.
Start by reading pages that contain the information you need. Look at what’s missing. Choose which format is appropriate for the accounting task to follow.
A cleaner financial workflow can begin not with more processing, but rather by deliberately processing less.