When you open a lengthy statement, you’ll typically find much more information than just the transaction ledger. Account summaries and notices, as along with explanation texts along with disclosures and other pages which contain the data required by a bookkeeper.
When the only goal is to get transaction data into an accounting or spreadsheet system It is not essential to go through all data. A more targeted workflow begins by identifying the useful pages prior to creating the output file.
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The number of pages doesn’t necessarily mean More Useful Data
Imagine a company looking over the financial activity of a few months. Each PDF could contain ten or more pages, but only a small portion of each document contains the transactions tables that are required for accounting work.
A solution is to copy the tables, however this may be a slow process and could result in typing errors. Businesses can convert bank statements into Excel but only the relevant pages.
Docubrew provides a page preview which allows users to look over the PDF and decide the pages to be processed. You can leave out disclosures, cover sheets, and other pages.
Previewing First Gives You More Control
Automation is most effective in situations where the user can inspect what’s happening.
Instead of performing a complete document conversion, Docubrew lets users preview statements prior to completing the conversion. Docubrew extracts information from the original statement, instead of estimating 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.
The checkpoint is easy, but it’s important when dealing with financial records.
The destination should determine the Export
The next question is what you plan to accomplish with the transactions.
Excel can be practical for bookkeepers who need to examine the rows, sort information or manipulate the data in a spreadsheet. CSV could be a better option if you’re transferring data to a different system. Docubrew allows QBO output.
If someone wants to convert a bank statement into CSV format then they can create the CSV instead of creating an Excel worksheet and later manually changing the formats.
Docubrew’s output is designed to work with accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks and spreadsheet-based workflows.
Scanned Paper Statements Can Join the Same Workflow
The conversion is possible with any PDF file, not only those that have been digitally made.
Certain businesses have only paper copies of older statements. Docubrew can support OCR for scanning statements in PDF format to ensure that these documents can be processed as well.
This could be beneficial in the case of historical bookkeeping, where the most recent data was converted to digital format, while older documents were scanned from paper. Documents can be converted with the same procedure and subsequently reviewed prior to exporting.
You can process locally or utilize cloud
How the financial documents are handled affects the output as much as the result.
Docubrew’s Windows desktop application handles the conversion locally, and stores client files on the computer. If you prefer browsing-based processing cloud, the cloud option secures uploaded files. According to Docubrew will automatically delete uploaded and converted documents within 24 hours.
The bottom line is that converting a bank statement into Excel should not mean the entire page of every PDF into an Excel spreadsheet and hoping the output is beneficial.
Begin by reading the pages with the information you require. Examine what information is being extracted. Choose the best format for the next accounting task.
A more efficient workflow for financial transactions can start not by more processing rather, by purposefully taking care to process less.