Creating Searchable Financial Records From Old PDF Statements

The advancements in banking technology have greatly automatized bookkeeping. However, anyone who deals with financial records is aware that the automated system doesn’t always perform as expected. The bank feeds are not working properly, the historical transactions may not be available, and customers may be unable to send documents in the format of PDF. It is then necessary to transform a PDF document designed for reading into something that accounting software will actually use.

A converter for bank statements will reduce the amount of repetitive tasks involved in the process. Docubrew converts bank statement data into spreadsheet-ready information instead of manually entering date, description withdrawals, and deposits row-by-line.

Image credit: docubrew.com

When a PDF becomes the missing piece

Imagine a bookkeeper is preparing an annual reconciliation for an unnamed client. The accounting system shows the most recent transactions, but some older months are missing. Luckily, the client has downloaded the original PDF account statement.

It used to take many hours of grueling copying the spread sheet. A PDF bank statements to Excel workflow offers a more efficient alternative. Docubrew accepts digital PDFs as well as scanned paper statements and extracts the transaction details to be used in spreadsheets.

The reduced amount of manual transcription will also make it less likely to make mistakes in typing, which is a big benefit for professionals who need to transfer bank accounts regularly into Excel.

Keep the Pages That Actually Count

The bank statements aren’t only transactions. A 12-page report could contain a cover sheet, account summary, disclosures, notices and pages of actual banking activity.

Docubrew lets users preview the document and then select the appropriate pages prior to conversion. This makes it easy to convert bank statements to Excel without the need to include unrelated content.

The resulting file is ready to be used in conjunction with accounting platforms such as QuickBooks, Xero and FreshBooks.

CSV Provides a Flexible Accounting Workflow

CSV remains valuable because it is widely used by databases, spreadsheets, as well as accounting applications. Docubrew can convert a bank statement into CSV using its transaction table.

The same workflow can help firms convert bank statement to CSV when reconstructing historical books, handling a new-client cleanup project, investigating missing transactions, or preparing data for reconciliation.

The batch processing process is particularly valuable for accounting firms who are working with multiple statements or clients at the same time.

Financial documents require careful privacy controls

It’s not the only thing to think about when processing financial records. Bank statements could contain sensitive client information accounting professionals and bookkeepers could also consider where the processing is taking place.

Docubrew offers two options. Windows desktop application converts files locally on the PC used by the user. Users who prefer browser-based workflows can choose the cloud encrypted option, in which uploaded files will be deleted automatically after 24 hours.

That choice distinguishes the platform from the bank statement Excel software, which relies exclusively on remote processing.

Turning Document Archives Back Into Working Data

While PDF statements are excellent records, they are inconvenient to use when transactions have to be sorted or reconciled. Also, they aren’t able to be used to import, filter, or re-organize or re-organized. Scanned documents can be a problem because transaction data can only be available in the form of an image.

Docubrew integrates statement parsing and OCR support for scanned documents accounting professionals, bookkeepers and companies a practical route from archived financial paperwork to a usable set of transactional data.

The result is a change in a workflow that was once tedious The bank statement is still used as the original financial record but the transaction table is now data you can use.

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