[HOW TO] Convert MayBank Statement to Excel

Introduction

A issue that I recently ran across is with a customer with MayBank. She was having trouble converting a the MayBank bank statements from PDF format to Excel.

The bank provides CSV format - but this only goes up so far. For statements older than 12 months you are stuck with PDFs.

At first I was not aware of this bank.

A quick Google search revealed that its one of the top banks in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia - D’Oh!

In this post I will detail how I easily converted the PDF bank statement to Excel format.

Generally this involves:

1. Download the bank statement from MayBank Bank
2. Convert the bank statement to Excel
3. Clean up the data in Excel

Note

If you are living outside of Malaysia, you may have never heard of MayBank.

It is the largest bank in Malaysia, offering a wide range of financial services including personal and business banking, insurance, and investment advice. Founded in 1960 and has its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

1. Download the bank statement from MayBank Bank

Accessing your monthly statements on the Maybank2u website is a straightforward process. Here’s a simple guide to help you view or download your statements:

1. Navigate to the Maybank2u website through the following link: www.maybank2u.com.my
2. Log in to your account using your credentials.
3. Select the relevant account (e.g., Savings or Current Account) to access its monthly statements.
4. Click on ‘View Statement’ – your statement will pop up in a readable PDF format.
5. Choose the statement period: From the dropdown menu, select the month of the statement you wish to view.
6. Download the statement: To keep a copy of the statement, click the download icon.

2. Convert the bank statement to Excel

👉 Using PdfDodo to extract data to Excel

This option is created by yours truly. Just sign up with an account and you try it out for free.

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 Excel or CSV file:

As we can see it correctly matches the columns and rows - even the row with multiple lines!

Benefits

Being a automated process it lends itself with some of the following benefits:

• Works well extracting all the data accurately - very little data cleansing or clean up is required.
• You can use it for scanned PDFs and also text-based PDFs
• Free for limited use and no need to install heavy software.

Alternative: Convert within Excel

If you’re one of the many users who has the latest version of Microsoft Excel at your disposal and are looking to swiftly pull out data from a text-based PDF bank statement, you’re in luck, because we’ve got just the right method for you. Bear in mind, this process isn’t compatible with scanned PDF documents.

It is imperative to stay updated with your Excel version as this functionality may not be accessible with older editions like those from 2016 or 2019. Furthermore, ensure that your Microsoft 365 subscription plan supports this feature, typically found in the Enterprise edition but possibly limited in more basic packages.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you through:

• Step 1: Start by opening your Excel application.

• Step 2: Spot the “Data” tab, usually found in the ribbon at the top, and give it a click.

• Step 3: Now, initiate the data extraction process by going to ‘Get data’, then select ‘From file’ followed by ‘From PDF’.

• Step 4: At this stage, you’ll be prompted to select the specific PDF file from which you wish to extract data. Locate your file, select it, and press ‘Import’. You will now find yourself greeted with the Navigator panel where you can preview the tables and pages housed in your PDF.

• Step 5: Identify the table that holds the data you need. Once found, select it and click ‘Load’ to bring this data right into your Excel worksheet.

Pros and Cons

• Quick and dirty way to get started if you already have Excel installed on your machine
• With Standard Bank statements, I found its fairly straightforward. Not much data cleansing is needed!
• Only for newer versions of Excel (Microsoft 365) and particular Office subscriptions (Enterprise). If you are still using older versions like 2019, 2016, etc this option is not available.
• If you are scanning your statements, then this will not work.
• If the statement is password protected - then you can not use this option

Alternative 2: Use Adobe Pro

• Step 1 Begin by launching Adobe Acrobat. Once open, locate and open the desired PDF file you’re planning to convert.

• Step 2 In the Adobe Acrobat toolbar situated at the upper left corner, click on “File.” A dropdown menu will appear; select “Export To” to proceed.

• Step 3 In the newly displayed submenu, pinpoint and select “Spreadsheet.” Subsequently, opt for “Microsoft Excel Workbook.” It is pertinent to note that a direct “export to CSV” function is not available, necessitating this Excel conversion step.

• Step 4 Determine a suitable location on your system to store the soon-to-be converted Excel file. Once chosen, click “Save.”

• Step 5 Following the successful conversion, access the Excel file by opening it in Microsoft Excel.

• Step 6 Within the Microsoft Excel environment, navigate to “File” followed by “Save As.” Decide upon a convenient location for your forthcoming CSV file. In the “Save as type” dropdown menu, select “CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv),” then finalize by clicking “Save.”

Limitations:

• Accuracy of this process can vary, especially with more complex PDFs. If your PDF is a scanned image or contains intricate layouts, you might need to do some manual adjustments in Excel before saving it as a CSV.
• You will have to pay for Adobe Pro - which can be quite steep.

3. Clean up the data in Excel

The very last step is to clean up the data that we got from our conversions. Some things that we need to do:

• Update the “Amount” format. If you need to import this into accounting software make sure to change the “(+-)” sign around.
• The dates follow the format of <day>/<month>/<year>. If you are in the countries that supports other formats, make sure to clean this up.

Final thoughts

Overall I think converting with this bank is quite challenging if you are not familiar with the language or locale.

We can use PdfDodo to convert this to Excel. Alternatively, we can use Adobe Pro or even Microsoft Excel.

The problem with those alternative options is that it is not optimized for bank statements. So will not work with transactions that span multiple pages, different locales/region formatting, etc.