Bank statements, checked line by line.

01What Takarda pulls out

The bank statement field list reads the details at the top of the statement and the totals it prints:

• Bank
• Account name
• Account number
• Currency
• From
• To
• Opening balance
• Closing balance
• Total money out
• Total money in

Then every transaction comes back as a row in a list called Transactions, with these columns:

• Date
• Description
• Money out
• Money in
• Balance

You can reword, remove or add any field. If you only need the account number and the closing balance, keep those two and nothing else comes back.

02Different banks, the same columns

Every bank lays out its statement its own way. One prints Debit and Credit, another Withdrawals and Lodgements, a third shows both in one column, with a minus sign for money out. The field list describes what each column means, not where it sits, so statements from different banks come back in the same columns and line up in one file.

If your bank uses words the descriptions do not mention, add those words to the description of Money out or Money in and read the file again.

03Long statements

A statement can have up to 100 pages in one file, and up to 50 files go in at once. The transactions from every page come back as one list, in the order the statement prints them.

In Excel you can spread that list so every transaction has its own row, ready to sort, filter and add up.

• The PDF your bank sends is the best copy. It is sharp on every page.
• A printed statement can be scanned or photographed one page at a time. The photo guide shows how.
• A screenshot from a bank app is read like any page, but a screenshot that cuts off part of the table can only give the part it shows.

04The checks

Money out and money in are added up from the transactions and compared with the totals the statement prints. When they agree, you know no transaction was skipped or read twice.

When they do not agree, the total is marked Doesn't match, with both numbers beside it, so you can see the size of the gap. Takarda never changes a figure to make it fit. A value the statement does not show is marked Not on the page, never filled in.

05Why a person confirms before download

A statement often feeds a real decision: a loan, a month end, a client's books. One wrong digit in a balance can change that decision, so nothing downloads until a person has looked and confirmed.

When you fix a value, your correction is kept beside the original reading and marked Corrected. When you are happy, you confirm, and only then can the rows go to Excel, CSV or JSON.

06Keeping statements private

Statements carry account numbers and a record of someone's spending, so treat them with care.

• Files travel over an encrypted connection and are stored encrypted. They are never used to train a model.
• Give each person the smallest role they need. A viewer can look and download again, but cannot change anything.
• Only upload statements you are allowed to handle: your own, or a client's who has agreed.
• Delete a file when you are done with it. You can delete one file or the whole account at any time and get a deletion receipt.

07A quick check before you upload

1. Use the PDF from the bank when you have it, not a photo of the screen.
2. Keep every page of the statement in one file, in order.
3. Make sure the printed totals page is included, so the checks have something to compare with.
4. Upload only statements you are allowed to handle.