A transaction example
Date,Description,Amount,Balance,Currency 2026-01-15,Office supplies,-45.00,955.00,USD 2026-01-16,Client payment,1200.00,2155.00,USD
This fictitious example uses ISO dates, a signed Amount and a Currency column. Negative amounts are debits and positive amounts are credits in this mapping.
Reviewed 19 October 2026 · Scope and editorial method
Columns FinanceConvert recognizes
Provide a header row with Date and Description, then either Amount or Debit/Credit. Balance, Memo, Currency, FITID, AccountID, BankID and AccountType can retain additional context. Available identifiers are carried into tabular exports. An account number should be treated as text so leading zeros survive.
Choose one consistent amount mapping
If both Amount and Debit/Credit are present, Amount must equal Credit minus Debit. Conflicting values are refused. Do not invert the sign simply because your accounting tool calls an expense a positive number; inspect its import instructions and the preview.
Separators, encodings and dates
The reader detects comma, semicolon and tab separators. Quoted fields can contain separators. UTF-8 is tried strictly, with Windows-1252 fallback and support for UTF-16 files carrying a byte-order marker. Malformed quotes, duplicate headers and inconsistent columns are refused.
A date such as 03/04/2026 cannot establish its own convention. Use an ISO date or select the source’s date order. Thousands and decimal separators also vary; verify representative amounts against the source.
CSV or Excel?
CSV keeps only text fields, so spreadsheet software may reinterpret identifiers and dates. Excel output uses typed date/numeric cells and text identifiers. The input reader does not accept arbitrary Excel workbooks: export a supported bank CSV first.
CSV syntax reference
RFC 4180 describes common comma-separated syntax. It does not prescribe bank-specific headers or debit/credit conventions; the supported mapping above is specific to this reader.