Bank statement glossary

For bank transactions, the trail usually runs from the ledger entry, to the imported or typed transaction, to the line on the bank statement.

The statement matters because it comes from a third party: an auditor, lender or tax office compares your books against the bank’s own record. Keep the original PDF statements alongside any spreadsheet or CSV made from them, so each converted row can be checked against the page it came from.

BAI2 files are comma-delimited text made of numbered record types:

• 01 file header, 02 group header
• 03 account identifier and balances
• 16 one transaction
• 88 continuation of the previous record
• 49, 98, 99 trailers with control totals

Each transaction carries a type code. Example: 16,475,16843,Z,... reports a check paid (type 475) of $168.43, with amounts written in cents and no decimal point.

The format was created by the Bank Administration Institute. Treasury systems and ERPs import it. Individuals and small businesses rarely see BAI2; they get PDF statements or CSV downloads.

The goal is for your ledger balance, adjusted for timing differences, to equal the statement’s closing balance.

Example: the statement closes at $8,200. Your books show $7,450. A $1,000 check you wrote hasn’t cleared yet, and a $250 deposit is still in transit. $8,200 − $1,000 + $250 = $7,450, so the account reconciles.

Typical differences are outstanding checks, deposits in transit, bank fees and interest you haven’t recorded, and errors. Accounting software does the matching once the bank transactions are imported. When a client only has PDF statements, converting them to CSV gets those transactions into the software.

Most statements share the same parts: the account holder and account number, the statement period, a summary box with the opening balance, total money in, total money out and closing balance, then a transaction table. The table usually has a date, a description, an amount (or separate debit and credit columns) and often a running balance.

Example: a monthly checking statement for September 1–30 opening at $4,379.00 and closing at $4,916.20, with 42 transactions in between.

Banks issue statements monthly for most current accounts, and quarterly or yearly for some savings accounts. Today they are mostly PDFs. To work with the transactions in a spreadsheet or accounting software, convert the PDF to Excel or CSV, then check that the totals match the summary box.

It is harder than copying a table because every bank lays out its statements differently. Some print one signed amount, others separate money in and money out; descriptions wrap onto a second line; page headers, subtotals and “balance brought forward” lines sit between transactions; dates often print without a year.

A good extraction keeps each transaction as one row and gives you a way to check the result, usually by comparing the last running balance with the closing balance on the statement. Converters such as BankConv do this; you can also try other methods on short, simple statements.

The file type decides what can read the statement:

Format	Who reads it	Typical use
PDF	People	The official monthly statement; goes back years
CSV	Spreadsheets and most accounting software	Recent downloads and converted PDFs
OFX, QFX, QBO	Accounting and budgeting software	Bank-feed style imports with duplicate protection
MT940, CAMT.053, BAI2	Corporate and treasury systems	Daily statements for business accounts

The layout is the column order inside the file. One bank prints Date, Description, Amount, Balance; another prints Paid out and Paid in as separate columns. Software asks you to map these when you import a CSV.

Example: a UK bank’s CSV download might use Date, Type, Description, Paid out, Paid in, Balance, while QuickBooks Online wants Date, Description, Amount. The guide to PDF, CSV and OFX statement formats compares them in detail.

In Australia, an account is identified by its BSB plus an account number. The first two digits of the BSB identify the bank, the third the state and the last three the branch. Both numbers are printed at the top of Australian bank statements.

Example: BSB 062-000 with account number 12345678. A BSB starting with 06 belongs to Commonwealth Bank.

Xero and MYOB ask for the BSB and account number when you set up a bank account, not when you import transactions. The transaction CSV only needs date, description and amount. See Australian bank statements for how each bank lays out its PDFs.

CAMT.053 carries the same information as MT940 in structured XML, with more room for remittance details. Each transaction is an <Ntry> element with an amount, a currency, a credit or debit indicator and booking dates. Balances appear as <Bal> elements, with codes such as OPBD for opening booked and CLBD for closing booked.

Example: <Amt Ccy="EUR">168.43</Amt><CdtDbtInd>DBIT</CdtDbtInd> is a debit of €168.43.

Related messages are camt.052 (intraday reports) and camt.054 (single debit or credit notifications). Many European banks now offer CAMT.053 to business customers alongside or instead of MT940.

The 18 digits break down into four parts:

Digits	Meaning
1–3	Bank code
4–6	Branch or city (plaza) code
7–17	Account number
18	Check digit

Example: a CLABE starting with 012 belongs to BBVA México, and one starting with 072 to Banorte.

The CLABE is printed on the estado de cuenta, the monthly PDF statement, usually near the account summary. Like other account identifiers, it sits in the header, not in the transaction rows. See Mexican bank statements to convert an estado de cuenta to Excel.

CSV is the most widely accepted import format for bank data. Excel, Google Sheets, QuickBooks Online, Xero and most accounting tools read it.

Example of a bank statement as CSV:

Date,Description,Amount,Balance
2026-09-18,STATE FARM INSURANCE,-168.43,4210.57

CSV has no fixed column names, so software asks you to map which column is the date and which is the amount. Watch for regional differences: many European files use semicolons as separators and commas as decimal points. BankConv converts PDF statements to CSV with one header row and plain numbers.

Statements show this in one of two ways: separate Debit and Credit columns, or a single Amount column where money out is negative.

Example: a $168.43 insurance payment is a debit; a $500 customer payment is a credit.

There’s a well-known confusion here. The bank describes your deposit from its own books, where it owes you more, so it’s a credit. In your own double-entry books, money arriving in the bank account is recorded as a debit to that account. Both are correct; they’re written from opposite sides. When you import a converted file, check that money out ends up negative, or in the column your software expects.

E-statements carry the same content as paper statements: account details, statement period, opening and closing balance, and every transaction. Most banks now issue them by default.

Example: in online banking, look for a menu such as “Statements” or “Statements & documents”, pick the month and download the PDF.

How far back you can go varies by bank, but it’s usually much further than the transaction download, which tends to cover recent months only. A downloaded e-statement is a digital PDF with real text, so it converts more reliably than a scan. BankConv converts e-statements from 1,000+ banks; see the Chase example.

An MT940 file is plain text organized by numbered tags. The main ones:

• :25: account number
• :28C: statement number
• :60F: opening balance
• :61: one transaction line
• :86: details for that transaction
• :62F: closing balance

Example: :61:2609180918D168,43NTRF is a debit (D) of 168.43 dated 18 September 2026. Note the decimal comma.

Accounting packages common in the Netherlands and Germany import MT940 directly. Many banks are moving to the XML format CAMT.053, though MT940 is still widely offered.

A PDF downloaded from online banking already contains text. A scanned, faxed or photographed statement contains only an image of text. OCR reads the image and recovers the characters.

Example: on a faint scan, OCR can read 8 as B or 1 as 7. One wrong digit in an amount is enough to throw off the running balance.

BankConv reads scanned PDFs with OCR. Clear, straight, high-contrast scans work best. After converting a scan, compare the closing balance and the totals with the statement. Where you can, ask for the downloaded e-statement instead.

Each transaction in an OFX file sits in its own block with a posting date, a signed amount, a payee and a unique ID called FITID. Software remembers the IDs it has imported, so loading an overlapping file twice doesn’t create duplicates. That is the main reason accounting tools prefer OFX to a plain spreadsheet.

Example: a payment of $168.43 to State Farm appears as <TRNAMT>-168.43 with <NAME>STATE FARM INSURANCE and its own FITID.

Banks usually offer OFX downloads for recent activity only. For older months, the PDF statement is often the only source. The OFX guide explains the fields in detail.

The two are linked by a simple formula: closing balance = opening balance + total credits − total debits.

Example: opening $4,379.00, credits $2,150.00, debits $1,612.80. The closing balance should be $4,916.20.

This is the check to run on any converted statement. Total money in and money out in your spreadsheet, apply the formula, and compare the result with the closing balance printed on the PDF. A match means the conversion is complete. Each statement’s opening balance should also equal the previous statement’s closing balance; if it doesn’t, a statement is missing.

To tell which kind you have, open the PDF and try to select a word in the transaction table.

• Text selects: the PDF is text-based. Statements downloaded from online banking are usually this kind, and they convert most reliably because the characters are already in the file.
• Nothing selects, or the whole page highlights as one block: the PDF is an image, usually a scan or a photo of a paper statement. The text has to be read with OCR first, so check amounts closely on faded or skewed pages.

Some PDFs mix both: a text-based statement with a scanned page added, such as a signed cover letter.

QBO files carry the same structure as OFX, including a unique ID per transaction, plus an Intuit bank code. QuickBooks Desktop relies on them for manual bank imports. QuickBooks Online also accepts them alongside CSV.

Example: a bank’s download menu may list “QuickBooks Web Connect (.qbo)” next to CSV. Choosing it gives a file QuickBooks reads without column mapping.

Don’t confuse it with a QuickBooks company file, which has a different extension. BankConv doesn’t produce QBO files; QuickBooks Online users can import a CSV instead, as the QuickBooks guide shows.

A QFX file holds the same transaction blocks as OFX: date, amount, payee and a unique ID. It adds Intuit-specific fields, most notably INTU.BID, a code identifying the bank. Quicken may refuse a file whose bank code it doesn’t recognize.

Example: in a bank’s download menu, an option labelled “Quicken (QFX)” or “Quicken Web Connect” gives you a QFX file for Quicken for Windows or Mac.

If you only have PDF statements, convert them to CSV and check which import formats your version of Quicken accepts.

Each QIF line starts with a single letter that says what it holds: D for date, T for amount, P for payee, M for memo. A caret (^) ends each transaction.

Example:

D09/18/2026
T-168.43
PSTATE FARM INSURANCE
^

QIF has no unique transaction ID, so importing the same file twice creates duplicates. Dates also have no fixed format, which causes day and month mix-ups. Many programs have moved to OFX or QFX for bank imports, but some personal finance tools still read QIF.

The domestic part of a French RIB has four fields:

Field	Digits	Meaning
Code banque	5	The bank
Code guichet	5	The branch
Numéro de compte	11	The account
Clé RIB	2	A check key

These 23 characters also sit inside the French IBAN, after FR and two check digits. Employers, landlords and the tax office ask for a RIB to set up payments.

A RIB is not a statement: it has no transactions. The monthly relevé de compte is the statement, usually a PDF with Date, Libellé, Débit and Crédit columns. See French bank statements to convert one.

Each running balance equals the previous balance plus money in, minus money out.

Example:

Date	Description	Amount	Balance
Sep 17	Opening		4,379.00
Sep 18	STATE FARM	-168.43	4,210.57
Sep 19	DEPOSIT	500.00	4,710.57

The running balance is the quickest way to check a converted statement. If the last balance in your spreadsheet equals the closing balance on the PDF, no row was dropped or doubled. Some business statements skip it and print a daily ending balance table instead. BankConv keeps the balance column when the statement has one, in Excel or CSV.

A UK account is identified by its sort code plus an eight-digit account number. Both are printed near the top of every UK bank statement, usually next to the account name. For international payments, the sort code and account number are combined into an IBAN.

Example: Sort code 12-34-56, Account number 12345678.

When you convert a UK statement, the sort code and account number sit in the header, not in the transaction rows, so they don’t appear as a column. Keep them in the file name or a note if you handle several accounts. See UK bank statements for bank-specific layouts.

Many accounts run on calendar months, but plenty don’t. A cycle can run from the 15th to the 14th, or end on the last business day.

Example: a statement for “August 16 – September 15, 2026” holds transactions posted in that range. A card payment made on September 15 might post on the 16th and appear on the next statement.

This matters when you combine statements for taxes or a loan application. Line up the periods in a spreadsheet and check that each start date follows the previous closing date. A gap means a missing statement. Also check rows near January 1 when dates print without a year.

The difference matters when you need older data. Online banking usually shows, and lets you download, only recent activity, often a few months to two years depending on the bank. Monthly statements usually stay available for much longer, as PDFs.

So for a recent period, the bank’s own CSV download of your history may be enough. For older months, or when a lender or accountant wants the official record with opening and closing balances, use the PDF statements.

A Canadian account is identified by three numbers: transit (5 digits, the branch), institution (3 digits, the bank) and account number. On a cheque they appear as 12345-004, where 004 is the institution number for TD. For electronic payments, the same details are written as a nine-digit routing number: a leading 0, then the institution number, then the transit number (0004 12345).

In the US, “routing transit number” means the nine-digit ABA routing number instead.

Example: Transit 12345, Institution 004, Account 1234567.

Canadian statements print these numbers in the header, not in the transaction rows. See Canadian bank statements for bank-specific layouts.

Many statements show only one date. Others, especially in France, Spain and other European countries, print two: the booking or operation date (when the bank recorded the transaction) and the value date (when the funds were credited or debited for interest). A check deposited on a Friday might be booked that day and given a value date the following Monday or later.

Example from a French relevé:

Date opération	Date valeur	Libellé	Débit	Crédit
18/09	19/09	CB CARREFOUR	54,20

When you import into accounting software, map one date consistently. The booking date usually matches what you see in online banking, so it is the common choice. Converted statements keep both columns when the PDF prints both; see CSV for the export.

XLSX has been Excel’s default format since Excel 2007. Unlike CSV, it keeps number formats, column widths, multiple sheets and formulas, and it opens in Google Sheets and Numbers too.

Example: a converted statement in XLSX has Date, Description, Amount and Balance columns where amounts are real numbers. You can sum them with =SUM(C2:C120) straight away, without first converting text to numbers.

Use XLSX for working papers and analysis. Use CSV when software asks for an import file. See bank statement to Excel.