Open a lengthy bank statement and you’ll often find much more than a transaction ledger. Account notes, summaries, explanations and disclosures could be a part of the essential information that the bookkeeper requires.
Processing all data isn’t necessary if the goal of the task is to transfer transactional data to an accounting software or spreadsheet. To create a more focused workflow, identify the pages you can use prior to generating the output.
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More pages don’t automatically mean More Data Useful
Take a look at an organization that has been reviewing its banking activities for several months. Each monthly PDF might contain ten or more pages, but only a small portion of the document has table of transactions required for financial work.
The manual copying of those tables is a possibility but it’s slow and prone to mistakes. Businesses can convert bank statements into Excel but only on the pages that are relevant.
Docubrew’s page preview lets the user to look over and decide on what to process. You can remove pages like disclosures, cover sheets or other pages you don’t require.
You have more control when you preview first
Automated systems perform best when they can be monitored by the user.
Docubrew allows users to preview the statements prior to finalizing the conversion. The software extracts figures from the original document instead of estimating financial values.
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.
It’s a straightforward checkpoint but an important one when financial records are involved.
Exports should be shaped by the destination
The next thing to consider is what you plan to do with the transaction.
Excel can be useful when a bookkeeper has to inspect rows, categorize information, or work with the information in a spreadsheet. CSV may be a better choice if you are transferring the data to another system. Docubrew also allows QBO output.
Anyone who wishes to convert their bank statement to CSV can do so by creating an CSV file instead of first making an Excel document and then manually changing the format.
Docubrew’s output was designed to be used with accounting platforms like QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks along with spreadsheet-based workflows.
Scanned paper statements may be incorporated into the workflow.
Conversion selective isn’t restricted to PDFs created digitally.
Sometimes, older statements are only available as paper scans. Docubrew can scan PDF documents, including statements.
It can be extremely useful when working on historic accounting projects, where certain documents were digitized, while others were scanned directly from paper. Instead of having two distinct workflows, documents could be processed with the same general conversion and then analyzed prior to export.
You can process locally or utilize cloud
The presentation of financial documents is just as important as how they are interpreted.
Docubrew’s Windows desktop software handles conversions locally and keeps client documents in the system. Cloud processing is available to those who prefer using browsers. Docubrew says that uploaded documents are protected and uploaded documents as well as the converted documents are deleted automatically after 24 hours.
The last step to convert the bank statement in PDF to Excel isn’t to put every page into the tool in the hope of obtaining a useful output.
Begin by looking at the pages that have the information you require. Review what information is being deleted. Then choose which format is appropriate for the next accounting task.
A more efficient financial workflow could begin with less processing however, it is by intentionally making less processing.