Importing Bank Statements
Reconciliation starts with the bank's side of the story — the statement. REDA Financials takes statements three ways: a CSV upload (the everyday path — every bank exports one), manual entry (for a handful of lines), and connected bank feeds where an integration delivers them automatically. REDA Financials provides the connection point for feeds rather than a bank connector itself — a feed needs an integration package or a custom provider, so CSV upload is the path that works on day one for every bank. The import tool lives right on the bank account's page.
Access you'll need. Importing statements requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view statements but not import or change them.
The CSV path
Enter the statement header
On the bank account's Import Bank Statement panel: Statement Date, Period Start/End, and the Opening and Closing Balance exactly as printed by the bank — these two numbers anchor the whole reconciliation later.
Shape the bank's export to the template
Download Sample CSV Template gives the format — columns Transaction_Date, Description, Amount, Type, Check_Number, Reference; only the first three are mandatory per row. Sign convention: money in positive, money out negative. Type can be left blank (derived from the sign) or set (Deposit, Withdrawal, Check, Fee, Interest, Transfer, Other). The tool's own hint: "Open in Excel, fill in your transactions, save as CSV, then upload above."
Drop the file, check the preview, import
Drag the CSV in (only .csv accepted); a preview shows the first rows and the total detected ("Preview (4 transaction lines detected)"). Import Statement creates the statement with its lines and confirms — "Statement imported successfully: 4 lines." — with a link straight to the record.
Meridian's July import, by the numbers
A real month makes the header fields concrete. Meridian's July statement for First National Bank - Operating: Opening Balance $875,700.00, Closing Balance $872,455.00, and four transaction rows in the CSV — Corvus Consulting's rent arriving (+$9,000.00, reference ACH-20260702-CORV), the CityClean payment leaving (−$2,200.00), the Apex Construction wire leaving (−$10,000.00), and the bank's own MONTHLY ACCOUNT SERVICE FEE (−$45.00). Note the sign discipline: one Amount column, money in positive, money out negative.
The import's built-in arithmetic check: the lines sum to +9,000 − 2,200 − 10,000 − 45 = −$3,245.00, and the balances agree — 872,455 − 875,700 = −3,245. When those two figures match, the file is complete; when they don't, a row is missing, duplicated, or has a flipped sign. The statement's own Net Movement field (Closing − Opening) makes this check a ten-second glance after every import — see Statement Validation.
Manual entry & adding lines
The Manual Entry tab is a mini-grid — date, description, amount, type, reference per row — right for a short statement or a missing line. Rows are added with Add transaction line (each offers Date, Description, Amount, a Type picklist — Deposit, Withdrawal, Check, Fee, Interest, Transfer, Other — and a "Ref / Cheque #" box) and removed with Remove line. The same tool on a statement's page adds lines to it ("Import Lines"), unless the statement is already reconciled ("Cannot add lines to a reconciled statement.").
The statement you just created
Either path produces a Bank Statement record with lines under it. What's on the statement itself:
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Bank Account | The account this statement belongs to — set by where you imported it, permanent thereafter. |
| Statement Date / Period Start / Period End | The header dates you entered. Defaults offered: today for Statement Date and Period End, the first of the month for Period Start. |
| Opening / Closing Balance | The two anchor figures, exactly as the bank printed them. The closing figure is what you'll later type as the reconciliation's Ending Bank Balance. |
| Status | New statements arrive as Imported. |
| Import Source | Stamped by how it arrived: Manual or CSV from this tool; OFX, Bank Feed and API exist for feed and integration deliveries. |
| Line Count · Total Credits · Total Debits | Live tallies of the lines underneath — your reconciliation-free health check. |
| Net Movement | Calculated: Closing − Opening. Compare it against Total Credits minus Total Debits. |
| Reconciled Amount / Unreconciled Amount | Matching progress, maintained as lines get reconciled — "Zero means fully reconciled." |
Built-in protections
- No double-importing: statement periods per account may not overlap — "An overlapping statement period already exists for this bank account." Import each month once; the calendar itself becomes your dedupe.
- Sane dates: Period End on/after Period Start; Statement Date within the period.
- Active account required — retired accounts take no new statements.
- Import is pure capture: nothing matches at import time. Matching is a deliberate step inside the reconciliation, where you can see and control it.
The rules that keep imports clean
Every message the import can show you, verbatim, with the fix alongside:
| The message | What it means / what to do |
|---|---|
| "Only .csv files are supported. Please upload a CSV file." | The file isn't a CSV — an Excel workbook (.xlsx) is the usual culprit. Save As → CSV and retry. |
| "CSV is missing the required header row." | Row 1 must be the template's header: Transaction_Date,Description,Amount,Type,Check_Number,Reference. Paste it in above your data. |
| "Failed to parse CSV content." | The file's structure broke somewhere — re-save from the template ("Download Sample CSV Template") and re-fill. |
| "Could not read the file. Please try again." | The upload itself failed — retry; if it persists, re-export the file. |
| "Period End must be on or after Period Start." | Header dates are backwards — fix the range. |
| "Statement Date must fall within the statement period." | The statement's own date sits outside its period — align the three dates. |
| "An overlapping statement period already exists for this bank account." | The double-import guard: some existing statement already covers part of these dates. Find it on the account's Bank Statements list — you may be re-importing a month you already have. |
| "Bank Account is inactive." | Retired accounts take no new statements. If the account is genuinely live, an administrator reactivates it first. |
| "Cannot add lines to a reconciled statement." | That month's evidence is sealed under a reconciliation. A genuinely missing line means reopening the reconciliation deliberately — see Statement Validation. |
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Leaving withdrawals positive (or splitting debit/credit into two columns) | Every affected line matches in the wrong direction — or not at all — and the Difference misleads by double the amount | One signed Amount column: in positive, out negative. The preview is your check before committing. |
| Dropping the bank's reference column to "keep the file simple" | Auto-match's exact pass pairs on references — without them, every month becomes date-and-amount guesswork | Keep Reference (and Check_Number) populated; it's the highest-value column in the file |
| Typing balances from memory or rounding them | Opening/Closing anchor the reconciliation's zero gate — a $0.30 typo becomes a $0.30 hunt weeks later | Copy both balances from the statement to the cent, then check Net Movement against the lines |
| Importing the same month twice after "fixing" the file | The overlap guard blocks it — but only if the dates overlap honestly; a shifted period slips through and doubles a month | Delete the bad statement first (possible while unreconciled), then import the corrected file with true dates |
| Editing the bank's amounts to match your books | The statement is evidence — bend it and reconciliation proves nothing | Import what the bank says, exactly. Differences are explained on the books' side: missing documents, adjustments, corrections |
Where to go next
- Bank Statement Lines — the imported rows up close.
- Statement Validation — the checks that keep statements trustworthy.
- Starting a Reconciliation — the next step after import.
Frequently asked questions
Rename the headers to the template's (one minute in a spreadsheet). The template exists precisely so any bank's export can be shaped in seconds.
Combine into one signed Amount column (out = negative) before upload. The sign is how REDA Financials knows a line is money out — it drives matching direction too.
Edit the statement's balances if it isn't reconciled yet ("Cannot edit a reconciled statement." protects finished ones). Wrong lines: fix or delete them individually — or delete the whole statement (only while unreconciled) and import clean.
Whatever your bank produces — the overlap rule is the only constraint. Most organizations reconcile monthly, so monthly statements map one-to-one to reconciliations; high-volume accounts sometimes go weekly and reconcile against several statements per period.
No — only the first three columns (date, description, amount) are mandatory per row; a blank Type is derived from the sign (positive → Deposit, negative → Withdrawal). But setting Fee and Interest where you know them pays off downstream: those types tell everyone reading the reconciliation "book me, don't match me."
Deliberately not — import is pure data capture. Matching happens later, inside the reconciliation, where you can see it, control it, and undo it. Nothing pairs behind your back between the upload and your first press of Auto Match.
Rows with fewer than three columns filled (date, description, amount) are skipped rather than imported broken. Compare the preview's detected count — "Preview ({0} transaction lines detected)" — against the bank's row count before importing, and check the tail of the file for stray subtotal rows.
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