Review a lengthy bank statement and you’ll usually find much more than the transaction ledger. There may be account summaries, notices, explanatory statements, text, and other pages that contain the information a bookkeeper actually needs.
Processing all data is not essential if the task is to transfer the transactional data into an accounting system or spreadsheet. Before creating the output, identify the most valuable pages.
Image credit: docubrew.com
More Pages Doesn’t Mean More Useful Data
Look at an organization that has been reviewing its banking activities over several months. Each PDF could contain ten or more pages, but only a small portion of each file contains the transactions tables required for accounting work.
A solution is to copy the tables, but this can be a slow process and could result in typing mistakes. Businesses could also convert their bank statements to Excel and only include the relevant pages.
Docubrew provides a page preview that allows users to view the PDF and decide what gets processed. Disclosures, cover sheets and other pages that aren’t required can be left out.
Get More Control by Previewing the first
Automation is only useful when you know what it’s doing.
Docubrew allows users to view the pages of the statement prior to complete the conversion. The software extracts the figures directly from the statement source, instead of estimating the financial value.
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 one that is crucial when financial records are involved.
Exports should be designed by the destination
The next issue is what you plan to accomplish with the transactions.
Excel can be useful in situations where a bookkeeper must inspect the rows, sort data or use the information within a spreadsheet. CSV is a better option for data that is moving into a different system. Docubrew also supports QBO output.
Someone who needs to convert bank statements into CSV for example, can generate CSV instead of creating a CSV instead of making an Excel workbook in the beginning and manually changing formats following that.
Docubrew can be used with accounting software, such as QuickBooks®, Xero®, and FreshBooksand also spreadsheet-based workflows.
Scanned Paper Statements Can Join the same Workflow
The use of selective conversion isn’t restricted to PDFs created digitally.
Companies may have older statements which are available only as scans of paper. Docubrew is able to process PDF scanned documents, including statements.
This can be useful to keep a historical record of bookkeeping in which the most recent records were digitalized while older statements were scanned from paper. Instead of creating two separate workflows, documents can be processed through the same general conversion method and reviewed before being exported.
You can process locally or utilize cloud
How documents related to finances are handled matters as much as the final product.
Docubrew’s Windows Desktop application can convert documents locally on the client’s personal computer. For users who prefer web-based processing, the cloud option encrypts uploaded documents and, as per Docubrew it automatically deletes uploaded and converted documents within 24 hours.
To summarize, converting a banking statement into Excel doesn’t have to mean the entire page of every PDF into an Excel spreadsheet and hoping that the result is beneficial.
Begin by reviewing the pages that provide the information you need. Review what information is being deleted. Select the format to be used for the next accounting task.
A more efficient financial workflow could start not by more processing however, it is by intentionally doing less.