Bank statement to Monarch
Monarch Money imports transactions from a CSV with its own columns. Upload your statement and the file comes out in that layout — date, merchant, the original statement line and a signed amount per transaction.
Upload a file
What the Monarch Money CSV contains
- Monarch’s columns: Date, Merchant, Category, Account, Original Statement, Notes, Amount, Tags
- Dates as YYYY-MM-DD
- One signed amount per row — negative for money out, positive for money in
- The statement line kept in Original Statement, so nothing is lost
What the Monarch CSV file looks like
Monarch's importer reads eight columns in a fixed order. Merchant and Original Statement both carry the description — Monarch cleans the merchant name and keeps the original — while Category, Account, Notes and Tags stay empty for Monarch to fill.
Date,Merchant,Category,Account,Original Statement,Notes,Amount,Tags
2026-03-02,Direct Debit 4471 Acme Insurance,,,Direct Debit 4471 Acme Insurance,,-120.00,
2026-03-04,Card Payment Corner Grocer,,,Card Payment Corner Grocer,,-38.40,
2026-03-06,Transfer Received J Smith,,,Transfer Received J Smith,,500.00,What Monarch Money expects
Monarch Money’s CSV import expects its own set of columns. Category, Account, Notes and Tags are present but empty: the account is chosen when you import, and categories are Monarch’s job.
The amount is signed, the way Monarch reads it — spending negative, income positive.
How to convert
Upload your statement
Drop in the PDF you downloaded from your bank, or a scan of a paper statement.
Keep Monarch Money selected
The Monarch Money layout is preselected on this page.
Import into Monarch Money
In Monarch, open the account, choose to import transactions from a file, and pick the CSV.
Statements it handles
Layouts differ from bank to bank, so nothing is matched against a fixed template. An unusual statement still produces a table you can check before exporting — which is what makes it usable for bookkeepers and accountants who receive statements from every client.
PDF statements and CSV exports
A statement downloaded from your bank, or the CSV your bank lets you export. Both arrive as the same clean table.
Multi-page statements, read as one table
A statement that runs over several pages — or several statements uploaded together — is read as one continuous table, not one file per page.
Amounts and dates kept as your bank prints them
Debit and credit signs, decimal places and date formats are left as printed, so the numbers still reconcile against the statement.
Scanned, image-only PDFs, read with OCR
A statement with no text layer is read with OCR and may need a quick review — the one case where a row can come out wrong.
- CSV
- Scan
Rows are read by what they are — a date, a description, an amount — not by where they sit on the page, so a wrapped description stays with its transaction and a closing balance never becomes one. Why OCR mangles bank statements
Frequently asked questions
How do I import a bank statement into Monarch Money?
Convert the statement here with the Monarch layout selected, then use Monarch’s transaction import for that account and pick the CSV.
Why import a file instead of syncing?
For accounts Monarch cannot connect, for gaps when a connection broke, and for history from before you joined.
Is my statement kept after conversion?
No. The file is deleted when the conversion finishes; only the converted copy stays at your private link.
Do I need an account?
No. The converter works without signing up.