[HOW TO] Convert Standard Bank Statement to Excel

Introduction

Recently one of my customers was asking to convert a bank statement from Standard Bank to CSV format or Excel.

I was scratching my head.. I have never heard of Standard Bank before.

From a quick google search seems like it is a bank in South Africa!

Surprisingly, extracting the bank transactions from Standard Bank does not seem that difficult.

In this post, I will go over how to download your bank statement and then convert it over to Excel for you to apply any analysis afterwards.

These bank statements are text-based PDFs so can be copied manually. However I found it is a bit painful so opted to use software to extract the data.

Text vs Scanned PDFs

Text PDFs, or “searchable PDFs”, are generated from digital sources and contain actual text characters, making them easily searchable, editable, and accessible for tools like screen readers. They’re typically smaller in file size.

In contrast, scanned PDFs originate from physical documents that are digitized into image-based files. This makes them inherently non-searchable and larger in file size, unless they undergo Optical Character Recognition (OCR) processing. Editing scanned PDFs is more challenging, and their accessibility is limited unless converted into text format.

How to get your bank statement from Standard Bank

• Log onto the app,
• Tap on the tile that shows your account details and balance,
• Under “Your documents”, select “view” and choose between a 3, 6, and 2 years statement as suitable to you.

On Internet banking please follow these steps:

• Log onto Internet banking.
• Click on your account balance.
• On the download option, after you have selected your statement period. It does give you the option for statement preference.

Analysis of the bank statement from Standard Bank

To make sure that we convert the statements accurately, we first need to analyze the bank statement that we just downloaded from Standard Bank.

A Standard Bank statement would look like something below:

(Obviously the personal information is redacted and that the transactions are made up)

Some observations

• The statement seems to be more straight forward than other banks. Currency symbol of South African Rand is not used.
• There are 5 columns for transactions - “Date”, “Description”, “Payments”, “Deposits”, “Balance”.
• “Payments” column is for debit amounts and “Deposits” are for credit payments.
• Unlike other banks, the statements can go for multiple months.
• The statement is a text PDF so easier to copy text than scanned versions.

👉 Use PdfDodo to extract the data to Excel

Now you can extract the Standard bank statements by using PdfDodo.

Just sign up with an account and you try it out for free.

To do start the Excel conversion:

• 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:

You can then open up the Excel file and inspect your transactions so that it matches with the Standard Bank statement.

Alternative: Convert PDF to Word using Microsoft Word

A lesser-known alternative is to begin by converting your PDF to a Word document.

If you have Microsoft Word, the process is straightforward:

• Step 1: Launch Microsoft Word.
• Step 2: Choose a PDF file. If successful, Word will transform the PDF into a Word document. Note that you may receive a notification indicating the conversion might take some time, especially if the PDF is large.
• Step 3: Locate your transaction table and copy the rows and columns, then paste them into Excel.

Surprisingly, Microsoft Word did a pretty good job of converting it:

I noticed that I can easily copy the data from the transaction table and paste it into Excel without any problems.

One thing that is a drawback is that the tables are separated. So this means that you will need to copy and paste a table on one page.. and then move on and copy on another page.

Limitations

• Need to copy the tables page by page. Can not select all in one go.
• Method is ineffective for scanned PDF bank statements
• Does not work with encrypted PDFs

Alternative 2: Convert within Excel

For those who already have Excel installed and are looking for a quick solution to extract data from a PDF bank statement, this method might be handy.

It’s essential to note that this technique is compatible with text-based PDFs and not with scanned documents.

Furthermore, it’s crucial to have the most recent version of Excel. Older versions like 2019 or 2016 won’t suffice. The availability of this feature also hinges on your Microsoft 365 subscription. It’s standard in the Enterprise edition, but might be restricted in more basic plans.

• Step 1: Launch Excel.
• Step 2: Navigate to the “Data” tab.
• Step 3: Follow this path: Get data > From file > From PDF.
• Step 4: Choose the PDF file and hit ‘Import’.

You’ll then encounter the Navigator panel, displaying the tables and pages from your PDF with a preview.

• Step 5: Pick the table you want and click on ‘Load’. The selected table will be imported 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

Tips for a smooth conversion

• Make sure to update the “Payment”, “Deposit” and “Balance” columns with the correct currency (South African Rand)
• Using PdfDodo is pretty straightforward - allows you to combine tables from multiple pages. This does not work with other options.

Summary

In general, the Standard Bank statement is fairly simple and any of the options outlined in this post will work well.

Additionally unlike other bank statements, I found this bank needs less data cleansing.

Using PdfDodo will get you 100% of the way. Alternatively if you already own Microsoft Office Suite with Enterprise subscription, then you can use Word or Excel to convert the bank statement.

This will take more time - since you will have to copy the transaction table from each page. PdfDodo will do this automatically!