Bank of Ireland statement to Excel: a guide for accountants

If you keep the books for a business or a sole trader who banks with Bank of Ireland, month end starts the same way: the client saves the current account statement as a PDF from the Bank of Ireland App or 365 online and sends it over, and its transactions have to go into a spreadsheet before they can be reconciled. You upload that PDF to ExtractPro and download an Excel file with one row per transaction. Below: the statement that is converted, how its columns come across, and the figures every file is checked against.

The statement that is converted

ExtractPro converts one Bank of Ireland document: the current account statement headed Your Current Account Statement. Its transaction table has five columns: Date, Transaction details, Payments - out, Payments - in and Balance. Each page opens with a BALANCE FORWARD line, a page that continues onto the next one closes with a SUBTOTAL, and the foot of every page reads Page N of M. Amounts are in euro, written as 1,234.56.

Bank of Ireland describes the online version of that statement this way: “An eStatement is an electronic version of a paper statement available on the Bank of Ireland App or 365 online. It contains all the same information about your transactions as the paper version.” On how long it stays there: “Your eStatements will remain visible online for 7 years for open accounts. Your account statements remain available for 7 years after you close your account which can be ordered as duplicate statements.” Source: Bank of Ireland help centre, viewing statements, www.bankofireland.com/help-centre/faq/estatements-can-view/, accessed 8 November 2026.

Other Bank of Ireland documents are separate and are not covered below.

Getting the PDF from the client

On a phone, Bank of Ireland says “A PDF will open on your phone. You can then use your phone's settings to print or save your statement.” On a computer: “In the print menu choose 'Print to PDF' or 'Save to PDF'.” Source: Bank of Ireland help centre, printing or saving statements, www.bankofireland.com/help-centre/faq/will-able-print-save-estatements/, accessed 8 November 2026.

Bank of Ireland also offers a file of transactions, and sets it beside the statement: “eStatements and paper statements are a permanent record of all transactions on your account.” and “Alternatively you can export your transaction history as a CSV file using 365 online.” Source: Bank of Ireland help centre, exporting transactions, www.bankofireland.com/help-centre/faq/can-i-make-changes-to-transactions-on-my-estatements/, accessed 8 November 2026. For a month you have to close, ask for the statement PDF, unchanged: it carries the balances the Excel is checked against.

How the Excel comes out

• Date: Bank of Ireland prints it only on the first transaction of each day, as day, three-letter month and year (DD Mmm YYYY). In the Excel every row has its date, in DD/MM/YYYY format.
• Description: the text of Transaction details.
• Amount: a figure in Payments - out becomes a negative amount and a figure in Payments - in a positive one, stored as numbers that Excel can total.
• Balance: Bank of Ireland prints it only on the last transaction of each day, followed by OD when the account is overdrawn; an overdrawn balance comes out as a negative number. The rows in between get their balance once each stretch between two printed balances adds up to the cent, and a printed balance is never overwritten.

The BALANCE FORWARD and SUBTOTAL lines are used as checkpoints, not as transactions, and the notices printed under the table do not become rows.

How the file is checked

The conversion starts from the BALANCE FORWARD on the first page and adds each transaction in turn. At every balance Bank of Ireland prints, the running figure has to match it to the cent. At the foot of a page, the SUBTOTAL has to equal the running balance, and the BALANCE FORWARD at the top of the next page has to equal that SUBTOTAL. The file is rejected, and no Excel is delivered, when:

• the transactions do not lead from the BALANCE FORWARD through every printed balance;
• a SUBTOTAL does not carry over to the BALANCE FORWARD of the next page;
• one of the pages listed in Page N of M is missing;
• the statement holds more than one account number;
• the dates are out of order, or the last transaction has no printed balance.

A transaction row with figures in both Payments - out and Payments - in, or with two figures in one column, is also a reason to reject the file rather than guess its sign.

Several statements in one PDF

Clients sometimes merge a run of statements for the same account into one PDF. ExtractPro tells them apart by the Statement date and the statement Number at the top of each page, and then checks the whole file as one chain: the statements in date order, the pages of each statement consecutive, and the BALANCE FORWARD of each statement equal to the closing balance of the one before, so a gap between two statements breaks the chain. The first statement may start after its page 1. The last one has to be complete: its last page in the file cannot end with a SUBTOTAL, and its last transaction has to carry a printed balance and the date of its Statement date. If any of that fails, the file is rejected.

From the Excel to the reconciliation

Revenue tells businesses: “If you run a business, you must keep certain records for tax purposes. Your records can be used to confirm information contained in your tax returns and they should clearly show the accounting process.” and “You must keep the original of these documents for six years.” Source: Revenue, Keeping records, www.revenue.ie/en/starting-a-business/starting-a-business/keeping-records.aspx, accessed 8 November 2026. Keep the Bank of Ireland PDF with the client file; the Excel is the working copy.

With amounts stored as numbers and one transaction per row, you filter the payments in to match them against sales invoices, sort the payments out by description to allocate them, and use the balance column as a control against the bank account in the ledger. Each month converts on its own and comes back with the same columns, so one reconciliation template serves every period; map the columns to your software's import layout once and reuse it.

• Convert a Bank of Ireland bank statement to Excel