Uploading Bank Statement Transactions - FAQs
This help-guide article answers some of the most commonly asked questions to do with uploading bank statement transactions.
- To find out how to upload bank statement transactions from a CSV, XLS or XLSX statement file, click here.
- To find out how to manually upload bank transactions, click here
- To find out what to do if you have uploaded your bank statement transactions incorrectly, click here.
What file format does my bank statement need to be?
Bank Statements need to be in .CSV, .XLS, or .XLSX format (not .PDF), and these can be downloaded easily via your online banking.
What if I don't have access to online banking?
Online banking access is a standard feature of virtually all bank accounts. If you don't already have access to online banking, we highly recommend you request this, as it will enable you to download transactions easily and upload them within ExpensePlus at the click of a button!
Should I modify my bank statement file before uploading it?
No, you should NOT modify the bank transaction file. ExpensePlus knows the statement layout and format for most major banks (so actually modifying the file to remove rows/columns isn't needed, and could introduce errors, either accidentally, or by not being consistent with how you modify the file each time.
Most issues can be avoided by simply not opening the downloaded bank transaction file (but simply selecting and uploading it to ExpensePlus)
How can I tell if I've uploaded my bank statement correctly?
When you upload a bank statement file to ExpensePlus, you will be taken to a confirmation screen, that will show you the transactions in the file that are about to be uploaded. When you click 'confirm' on this screen, a popup will appear asking you to check that the closing balance in ExpensePlus matches the closing balance stated on your bank account. If the two balances agree, then you've almost certainly uploaded your transactions correctly. If they don't, you will know that something is incorrect.
By checking that the closing balances agree each time you upload transactions, should you ever have an issue you will be able to:
- spot this immediately (and fix it)
- know that the issue is with the transactions in the file you are currently uploading
If you don't do this, it's likely you may not spot issues for several weeks or months, at which point it will be much more time-consuming for you to go back and figure out where the issue has happened and to manually correct individual transactions (as opposed to just removing the upload with a single click, correcting the issue, and importing again). If you upload transactions incorrectly, we provide guidance here for what you need to do.
What will happen if I upload the same bank transactions more than once?
If this happens, you will end up with duplicate transactions and your bank statement balance within ExpensePlus won't match your actual bank statement balance.
Churches and charities that upload transactions on either a weekly or monthly basis, are unlikely to have an issue (because you are unlikely to select the same transactions to upload again). Organizations that upload transactions in a more ad-hoc way can avoid issues by:
- checking the date of the last uploaded transaction for that bank account before downloading the next set of bank transactions to upload (in order to ensure the start date of the next batch of transactions is the day after the date of the last transaction uploaded).
- checking the closing bank balances agree each time you upload transactions to ensure you've uploaded the correct transactions.
Note: Downloaded bank transactions don't have a unique transaction reference, therefore ExpensePlus doesn't prevent 'duplicates' (since you legitimately have the same transaction appear on your statement twice e.g. £2.90 at Costa Coffee on December 9th if two identical purchases were genuinely made).
Why are transactions with today's date excluded?
We exclude transactions with today's date because the benefit of uploading transactions with a statement date of today is outweighed by the fact that transactions dated with today's date might not yet have appeared on your statement at the point you downloaded it, which would then result in either:
(a) missing bank transactions (causing your bank balances to be incorrect, along with your financial report)
(b) next time you upload, have to figure out which transactions with today's date are missing (which can be time-consuming and lead to errors)
It's best to only download transitions for days that are complete and therefore won't change (i.e. yesterday). If you accidentally include transactions from the current day, these will automatically be excluded, to prevent the issues described above.
What should I do if my bank statement won't upload
If your bank statement won't upload at all to ExpensePlus, it is likely to be saved in an incorrect format. For example *.ODS files are not supported. To find out which file types are supported, please read this help guide article.
If you are able to upload the statement but it's not importing correctly chances are you have either modified the bank statement file prior to uploading (please read the guidance above on why you shouldn't do this), or you've tried to manually set the import format but done this incorrect (which, for major banks, isn't needed because they automatically know the layout and format of bank statements).
If you get stuck, please click the Send us a message button at the top of this screen. In the email, please confirm the name bank account name you are trying to upload the statement to AND send us the unmodified bank statement file you are trying to upload.
To better understand the Bank Reconciliation module, please view the module overview video here.