Field notes.
Workflows, format explainers and troubleshooting. Every one is written so it still helps if you never use anything on this site.
How to extract a bank statement: download it, then get the transactions out
"Extract a bank statement" means one of two jobs. Either you need the statement itself out of online banking, or you already have the PDF and need the transactions out of it. This guide covers both, in the order most people meet them, and ends with the check that tells you whether anything was lost on the way.
· 7 min read
How to import a PDF bank statement into QuickBooks Online and Desktop
QuickBooks Online now reads PDF statements itself, so for many people the answer is simpler than it was a year ago. QuickBooks Desktop still needs a QBO Web Connect file. This guide shows where each upload lives, when the built-in route is enough, and when converting first saves you trouble.
· 6 min read
Fixing "QuickBooks is unable to verify the Financial Institution information for this download"
This error appears when QuickBooks opens a .QBO file and does not accept the bank code inside it. The transactions are usually fine; the label on the file is the problem. Here is what that label is, why it fails, and the fixes to try in order, from the safest to the most hands-on.
· 6 min read
How to convert a PDF bank statement to QFX for Quicken
Quicken does not read PDF statements. It imports transactions from a QFX Web Connect file, the kind a bank gives you when you choose "download for Quicken". When the PDF is all you have, you need to turn it into that file, check it, and import it carefully. Here is the honest version, including where Quicken itself draws the line.
· 6 min read
How to import a PDF bank statement into Xero
Xero can now read some PDF statements itself, but only in certain countries, on certain plans and for clean files. Everyone else needs the statement as a CSV first. This guide shows which route you have, then walks through each one, with the checks that stop a bad import reaching your reconciliation.
· 5 min read
How to open a password-protected bank statement PDF
Many banks email statements as PDFs that will not open without a password. The password is not hidden or secret in any clever way: the bank sets a format and tells you what it is. The trouble is finding that instruction, and then getting an unlocked copy you can use. Here is how, without guessing and without handing the password to a website.
· 6 min read
Is it safe to use a bank statement converter?
A bank statement shows your name, address, account details, income and every place you spend money. Uploading one to a website you found five minutes ago deserves a minute of checking first. These are the questions worth asking any converter, the safer alternatives when the answers are not good enough, and how Sonomir answers each one.
· 6 min read
How to get a year of bank statements ready for your accountant
Accountants lose more time to missing and jumbled statements than to the sums themselves. If you do this in December rather than the week before a deadline, you can send a complete, checked set: every account, every month, in a form your accountant can use straight away. Here is the order to do it in.
· 6 min read
QBO vs QFX vs OFX vs QIF: which bank import file do you need?
Choose the format your destination supports before converting a statement. Similar extensions do not mean interchangeable files, and a matching balance does not prove the extracted transactions are correct.
· 6 min read
How to import a PDF bank statement into YNAB
YNAB's file import takes four formats — CSV, OFX, QFX and QIF — and a PDF is not one of them. So a statement your bank only gives you as a PDF, an account that YNAB's direct import cannot link, or a month that fell through a sync gap has to be converted first. Here is how to do that, import it cleanly, and check the imported transactions against the source.
· 7 min read
How to import a PDF bank statement into GnuCash
GnuCash has good importers — OFX/QFX, QIF and CSV, all under File → Import — but none of them reads a PDF. For old statements, closed accounts or banks that only email PDFs, you convert first and import second. The format you choose decides how much work the second half is, and GnuCash's own reconcile window tells you whether it worked.
· 6 min read
Old or closed bank account statements to Excel: getting them, then converting them
The download button in online banking usually reaches back a few months, sometimes a year or two. Closed accounts often lose online access altogether. So when a tax return, a mortgage application, a divorce disclosure or an executor's accounts need transactions from years ago, what you can get is PDFs or paper — and what you need is a spreadsheet you can trust. Here is how to get from one to the other.
· 6 min read
How to convert a bank statement PDF to Excel — and check the result
Getting transactions out of a PDF is the easy half. The half that matters is knowing none were dropped, doubled or misread on the way — because a spreadsheet that is missing one line looks exactly like one that is not. Here are the four ways to convert, in the order worth trying, and the check to run whichever you use.
· 6 min read
How to transcribe an interview without spending your evening on it
Typing an interview by hand takes four to six hours per recorded hour. Here is the workflow that gets the same result in about forty minutes, and the three places where you still have to do the work yourself.
· 5 min read
“Transcript not available” on YouTube: why it happens and four ways round it
The transcript button is missing, or a transcript tool returns nothing at all. There are four different causes and they need four different fixes — one of which works on any video with speech in it.
· 5 min read
How to type up handwritten notes in one pass
A notebook of handwriting can become searchable text in about the time it takes to photograph it — but only if you photograph it properly. Here is the capture routine, the clean-up that matters, and the part that is still yours.
· 5 min read
SRT vs VTT: which subtitle file do you actually need?
Two formats, almost the same content, and a decision that takes ten seconds once you know the rule: SRT for editors and uploads, VTT for the web. Here is what actually differs, and what matters more than either.
· 5 min read