Santander statement to CSV

What a Santander statement looks like, and what we do with it

Dates carry an ordinal and no year, written 8th Feb.

We read the ordinal and take the year from the period on the first page, so 8th Feb becomes 2024-02-08.

The transaction table is on the last page, after two pages of notices and rates.

We find the table by its columns wherever it sits. The rate tables carry no dates, so we do not read them as transactions.

Only the last transaction of a day carries a balance.

We carry the earlier amounts forward and check them against the next printed balance.

The table opens with a Previous statement balance row and closes with a Current statement balance row.

We take the opening and closing balances from them and export neither as a transaction.

The first page prints Total credits and Total debits, the debits with a minus.

We compare our totals with them, reading the minus as direction.

We have tested one real Santander business current account statement: three cheques on one day, the running balance matched, and the printed total credits and debits matched to the cent.

We have only tested the Santander business current account statement. Scanned or photographed statements do not work, because there is no text in them to read.

Once it is converted, the import steps for each accounting package are the same for every bank.

Questions