FreeAgent gets bank transactions from a bank feed, or from a statement file you upload: OFX, QIF or CSV. A PDF is not one of them, so a statement you only have as a PDF has to become a CSV first, in the exact shape FreeAgent reads.
What FreeAgent needs in the file
FreeAgent's CSV is stricter than most:
- Three columns, in this order: the date, the amount, the description.
- No header row. The first line is the first transaction.
- Dates as dd/mm/yyyy, with the year.
- One amount column, money in positive and money out with a minus sign.
- No commas and no quote marks in the amounts or the descriptions, and each description on one line.
So the file looks like this, with no header:
03/06/2024,1850.00,FPI A CUSTOMER LTD INVOICE 114
04/06/2024,-41.20,DD WATER COMPANY
05/06/2024,-23.49,CARD PAYMENT STATIONERY SHOP
The rows above are an example, not a real statement.
A statement's own layout is a long way from that: separate money in and money out columns, a balance, thousands separators, and descriptions full of commas.
Turn the PDF into FreeAgent's file
BankPDFtoXLS writes the file for you, from the statement's own dates and amounts.
- Upload the PDF on the home page. Page one converts free, with no email and no card, so you can check the columns first.
- Create an account and convert the whole statement.
- In your list of statements, select FreeAgent beside the other downloads.
The converter takes each date's year from the statement itself, and leaves out lines that are not transactions, such as "Balance brought forward". Any comma in a description becomes a space, and quote marks are dropped, since FreeAgent refuses both.
If a date cannot be settled, for example on a scan where a month did not read clearly, there is no FreeAgent file for that statement rather than one with a wrong date. The Excel download still has every row.
A statement that holds several accounts, such as an account and its savings pots, makes one file for each account.
Upload it to FreeAgent
- In FreeAgent, go to Banking > Bank Accounts.
- Choose the bank account the statement belongs to.
- Select Upload Statement, choose the file, and upload it.
You can also choose Upload a Statement from the Quick Links on the Overview screen, and FreeAgent asks which bank account it is for.
The transactions then wait to be explained, as any others do. FreeAgent can guess explanations from what your account already knows; if you would rather explain them all yourself, untick the option to guess before you upload.
Check it before you explain it
- Compare the balance. After the upload, the bank account's balance in FreeAgent should match the closing balance on the PDF.
- Do not upload a period twice. If the account also has a bank feed, upload only the dates the feed does not cover.
- Check any flagged rows. BankPDFtoXLS checks every balance against the
row before it. If a row does not follow, the list of statements says so.
Open the Excel download, filter the Ledger column for
break, and compare those rows with the PDF before you upload. Why a balance breaks explains what to look for.