Bank statement PDF to FreshBooks

How to get a PDF bank statement into FreshBooks

1. Download the PDF statement from online banking. Statements downloaded from your bank are text-based and convert cleanly; scans and phone photos aren't supported yet.
2. Upload it above. We read every transaction and check it against the statement's opening and closing balance. You see the result, and the first transactions, before you pay anything.
3. Unlock and download the FreshBooks CSV. One credit covers every format of that statement.
4. Import it in FreshBooks (steps below), set the opening balance from the same statement, then match and reconcile.

What's in the FreshBooks CSV

The first rows of our sample bank statement (business checking ending 0427) come out as:

Date,Description,Amount
09/01/2026,ACH DEBIT GUSTO PAYROLL 0912,-6420.18
09/01/2026,STRIPE TRANSFER ST-K2M8Q4,3184.27
09/02/2026,CHECK 2041,-1850.00

And the sample credit card statement, where purchases are money out and the payment is money in:

Date,Description,Amount
09/01/2026,GOOGLE *WORKSPACE CC@GOOGLE.COM,-72.00
09/02/2026,DELTA AIR LINES 0062 ATLANTA GA,-418.60
...
09/05/2026,PAYMENT THANK YOU - WEB,1500.00

How it lines up with FreshBooks' import rules (FreshBooks: import transactions from a file in bank reconciliation):

• Date and Amount headers in the first row, plus the optional Description, so every row keeps the bank's wording. FreshBooks lets you match each column to its field, so the order doesn't matter.
• One signed Amount column (FreshBooks' 1 Column format): positive for money in, negative for money out, numbers only, with no currency symbol or thousands separator. That's the same on bank and credit card accounts, so card purchases are negative.
• One date format, MM/DD/YYYY with slashes, the layout of FreshBooks' own example (01/17/2020), and rows in date order, which FreshBooks asks for.
• No empty cells and no duplicate rows. FreshBooks' help lists empty cells as an upload error and asks for every transaction in a file to be unique, so a blank description becomes "No description" and two identical lines on the same day (two $4.50 coffees, say) are written as COFFEE and COFFEE (2). $0.00 lines are left out.
• Up to 500 transactions per file. FreshBooks' limit is 500 transactions, 1,000 rows or 5 MB per CSV. Past 500, the download is a .zip of files with up to 500 each.

Want to see the files before importing anything? Download the sample statement's FreshBooks CSV (fictional bank, 31 transactions, 12,418.36 → 13,440.52) or the credit card FreshBooks CSV. Import samples only into a FreshBooks trial or test account, never into your real books: FreshBooks says a manually created bank account can't be deleted. More test files are in free sample bank statement files.

Importing the file in FreshBooks

1. Create the account if it isn't there: Accounting → Add Bank Account → Create an Account. Choose Bank Account or Credit Card (FreshBooks says the type, bank name and account name can't be changed later) and the currency.
2. Set the opening balance from the statement (see the next section). For a card, that's the Previous Balance.
3. Click the account's # left to match, Add Transactions or Upload CSV link. If FreshBooks offers Likely Matches, choose Skip or Confirm and Continue.
4. Under Unreconciled Bank Transactions, click Add Bank Transaction → Import from File and choose the FreshBooks CSV.
5. Match Date, Description and Amount, choose 1 Column as the Amount Format and month/day/year as the date format, then click Import Transactions.
6. Stay logged in until it finishes: FreshBooks says an import can take up to 15 minutes and is interrupted if you log out. Imported rows are labelled "Imported via CSV".

Steps from FreshBooks' import help and bank reconciliation setup help, read Oct 24, 2026. FreshBooks' help puts Bank Reconciliation on trials and the Plus, Premium and Select plans only. Its separate expense import (FreshBooks) wants Amount, Category, Date, Description and Merchant columns, and when a file has both it imports only the money-out lines, so it isn't a way to bring in a whole statement.

The opening balance, and why older months need the PDF

FreshBooks' help says a bank connection pulls at most 90 days of activity, and a connected account's Reconciliation Start Date can only go back as far as its first imported transaction (FreshBooks). Anything older, catch-up work for a new client, or an account that doesn't connect at all, comes in from a file, and the statement PDF is often the only file left.

Import the months in order, oldest first, and reconcile each one against its statement before the next. The closing balance Utilly checked is the number FreshBooks' Bank Account Balance should reach (as a negative number on a card account).

Common FreshBooks import errors

We built these files to FreshBooks' published rules but haven't imported them into a live FreshBooks account ourselves yet. Check the transactions on your first import, and tell us at support@version1.io if anything doesn't come through right.

Other formats from the same statement

• Excel or Google Sheets: the CSV with a Balance column (PDF to Excel).
• Moving from FreshBooks to QuickBooks or Xero? The same results page has a .QBO and .IIF (PDF to QuickBooks) and a Xero CSV (PDF to Xero).
• Wave: an OFX or a Wave CSV (PDF to Wave). Sage, FreeAgent or GnuCash: the OFX (PDF to OFX).