3 Ways to download Lloyds Bank Statements as CSV

Introduction

A common problem with doing tax returns is getting data out of PDFs and saving it as CSVs.

I had this exact problem recently with Lloyds Bank!

Now … wait a minute I thought Lloyds bank already have an option to save your bank transactions as CSV. Well it does, but poses some limitations:

• Exporting to CSV is only limited by a date range - I wanted to go back a few years.
• CSVs can easily be manipulated by the client and can come off as not trustworthy. I would prefer them to send the PDF (which guarantees the data has not been tampered with)

So this leaves us with the problem of getting data out of these PDF statements and saving it as CSV.

In this post, I will go over my steps to do this!

About Lloyds Bank

If you live outside of the UK - you may not know what Lloyds Bank is. It is a well-known banking institution based in the United Kingdom.

They offer a variety of financial services such as savings accounts, loans, and credit cards to individuals and businesses. It is one of the oldest banks in the UK dating back to 1765.

Step 1: Download your bank statement from Lloyds bank

Here’s a simplified step-by-step guide on how to download your bank statements from Lloyd Bank:

Via Mobile Banking App:

1. Open the Lloyd Bank mobile banking app on your phone.
2. Enter your credentials to log in.
3. Once logged in, navigate to your account menu.
4. Look for an option that says “Download or print statement” and select it.

Via Internet Banking:

1. Visit the Lloyd Bank internet banking website.
2. Enter your credentials to log in.
3. Once logged in, navigate to your account page.
4. Select “Statement options” from the menu.
5. Choose to download, save, or print your statements for the last 7 years.

If you prefer a paper copy, select “Order paper statements.” (Note: Paper copies can take up to 10 working days to arrive.)

Some notes:

• We can see that there are 6 columns Date, Description, Type, Money In (£), Money Out (£), Balance (£)
• In European banks, they have this TYPE code where it gives the type of the transaction. This can be handy when importing to accounting software like Xero. The problem is that will need to map this.
• Instead of “Debits” and “Credits” like other banks, they have stated it “Money In” and “Money Out”

Step 2: Extract PDF to CSV

So the next step to getting the data out into CSV format is to use PdfDodo.

👉 Use PdfDodo to extract the data to CSV

If your bank only provide statements in PDFs, then consider using PdfDodo to extract the data and convert it to CSV.

To do start the CSV conversion, we go through the following steps:

• Step 1: Get an account with PdfDodo
• Step 2: Go to the home page and click “Upload Document”

• Step 3: After the document has uploaded - click “Start Analysis”. This will usually take a few seconds.

• Step 4: Click on the uploaded document link to see the results.

After PdfDodo has completed analysis, it will list out all the data that it thinks is in a table format.

Now we can see our result and download the CSV file:

After that, can open up the CSV file and start doing our analysis.

Alternative Option 1: Adobe Acrobat DC

If you already have Adobe Acrobat subscription, we can use this method to extract our data.

Just follow the below steps to get it - will need to go through Excel first and then save as CSV:

1. First things first, fire up Acrobat and pull up that PDF you want to convert.
2. Spot the ‘Export PDF’ tool? It’s hanging out on the right-hand menu bar. Give it a click!
3. A ‘Convert To’ drop-down will pop up. From the list, pick the Excel file format. Trust me, this is the magic step!
4. There’s a big ‘Convert’ button waiting for you. Don’t leave it hanging—click it!
5. Decide on a cool name for your new Excel file and hit ‘Save’. Remember where you saved it; you’ll need it in a sec.
6. Open up your shiny new Excel file. Everything looking good? Perfect! If all the data’s in order, it’s time for the last step.
7. With your Excel file open, just save it as a CSV. And voilà, you’re all set! After conversion, open the generated Excel file - Sometimes the formatting might not be perfect, especially if the original PDF has complex layouts.

Pros and cons

• Works relatively well in most cases - issue is with the pricing of going get a Adobe License.
• Need to be installed and be be a heavy burden on your machine.
• Does not work 100% with scanned PDFs
• Does not work with password protected PDFs

Alternative Option 2: Manual Copy and Paste

The other alternative is for you to copy and paste the data manually. Fortunately, the Lloyds bank statement is not too bad to copy and paste if you are dealing with one or two statements.

I found my fingers and wrists were aching when I was doing a dozen or so.

1. Pop open that PDF bank statement of yours.
2. Find the info you wanna shift over and give it a good highlight.
3. Copy it! That’s Ctrl + C for most folks, or Command + C if you’re on a Mac.
4. Now, swing over to Excel and open it up.
5. Time to paste! Hit Ctrl + V, or Command + V on a Mac.
6. Tweak those columns and rows to make it look nice and neat.

Heads up, though: this can be a bit of a drag if you’ve got a super long statement. Just so you know!"

Step 3: Clean the data

The final step is to make sure that we clean up the data. Some aspects that you should think about:

• Combine the “Money In” and “Money Out” columns. Some accounting software like Quickbooks or Xero prefer the structure to combine these columns.
• Consider the date format - the existing format is day month year
• The bank statement will have empty rows to display the “total”. You will need to remove this if you are using Xero or Quickbooks.

Final comments

Overall the Lloyds bank statement can be converted from PDF to CSV quite simply using PdfDodo.

Lloyds bank does provide a extract to CSV functionality, but the problem is that it is limited to a certain date range. Additionally sometimes we need to accept PDF because the CSV sent from clients can easily be manipulated!

PdfDodo can get you 99% the way there. It will extract the tables exactly. You will need to clean the data to import to your accounting software such as Xero or Quickbooks.