Getting an accurate conversion every time
The tool does the typing. These six habits are what make the result something you would sign your name to.
1. One bank and one account per file
This is the rule that matters most. Parserje checks a statement against its balance column and against the totals printed on it, and that check only means something when every row belongs to the same account. Three accounts means three conversions and three workbooks. It feels slower. It is not.
2. Use the bank's own PDF when you can
A soft copy downloaded from online banking is faster and more accurate than any scan of a printout, because the figures are read straight off the file instead of recognised from a picture. Reach for the scan only when the soft copy is gone.
3. If you must scan, scan properly
A clean scan at 200 dpi or better, flat on the glass, in one pass, reads well. A dark photocopy or a phone photo taken at an angle is the hardest case there is, and no tool handles it reliably. Straighten the page before you blame the software.
4. Compare the closing balance
The five second check that catches almost everything: last balance in the Excel file, last balance printed on the statement. If those two agree, the month came across whole, because a row cannot go missing without taking its balance with it.
5. Treat flags as a to do list, not as errors
A flagged row means Parserje was unsure, usually because the print was faint or the figure sat oddly on the page. On a scanned statement a faint decimal point is the usual culprit. The value is usually right. Glance at the PDF and move on.
6. Check before you edit
Do your comparison on the file exactly as it was downloaded. Once you have renamed columns, inserted rows and sorted things around, checking against the statement gets much harder. Keep the PDF in the same folder with the same name, so that in six months the answer to "where did this figure come from" is one click away.
When something is still wrong
Fix it in the Excel file, then tell us what happened and which bank it was. Reports from real statements are the only thing that makes the next version read them properly.
New to the tool? Start with how to convert a bank statement PDF to Excel.
Questions people ask
Can Parserje read a scanned bank statement?
Yes. A clean scan at 200 dpi or better, flat on the glass, in one pass, reads well. A dark photocopy or a phone photo taken at an angle is the hardest case there is.
Why are some rows flagged?
A flagged row means Parserje was unsure, usually because the print was faint or the figure sat oddly on the page. The value is usually right. Glance at the PDF and move on.
How do I know nothing is missing?
Compare the last balance in the Excel file against the last balance printed on the statement. If those two agree, the month came across whole, because a row cannot go missing without taking its balance with it.
Convert your bank statement to Excel
Drop in your PDFs. Parserje reads them, checks the figures against the statement, and tells you what it found.