PDFCellsConvert a Citi credit card statement PDF to Excel
Open the Citi card statement PDF in PDFCells, check the transaction tables and download Excel. Citi prints both a transaction date and a post date as MM/DD without the year, and payments with a minus sign. The CSV, OFX and QBO exports take the year from the billing period; in the Excel sheet the dates stay as printed, so add the year there.
What a Citi card statement looks like
| Part | What is printed |
|---|---|
| Columns | Trans. date, Post date, Description, Amount |
| Sections | Payments, Credits and Adjustments; Fees charged; Interest charged (Date, Description, Amount) |
| Dates | MM/DD, no year; a payment may show only a post date |
| Signs | Payments as -$133.00; charges and interest unsigned with $ |
| Summary | Payments, Purchases and other lines with explicit − and + signs |
Source: a published 2015 Citi card statement, so check yours against it; the purchases section was not visible in it.
Converting it with PDFCells
- Download the statement PDF from Citi online banking (Statements). A PDF saved from online banking has a text layer, so it is read exactly and free.
- Open it at pdfcells.com. The PDF is opened and converted on your device. Nothing leaves the browser unless you choose an AI feature, and then only what that feature needs (exactly what is sent).
- Check each table against the page in the grid. Untick any table you don’t want, such as a daily balance summary.
- Download Excel.
- Two date columns: both come out as text such as
01/17. Keep the one your books use (usually the post date) and add the year. - Currency symbols are stripped and
-$133.00becomes −133, so amounts are real numbers. - Statement formats: transactions are dated by the transaction date with the year from the billing period, the payment and charge sections are combined and checked against the account summary, and OFX, QBO and the CSVs are offered once it ties.
Adding the year in Excel
The statement prints the year only in its period (the billing period, for example 12/23/14-01/22/15), so in the Excel export the date column stays as printed text such as 01/05. If you only need the transactions, the bank CSV export already has full dates (it takes the year from the statement period). To add the year in the Excel sheet instead, put the closing year in F1 and the closing month number in G1, then fill this down a new column:
=DATE($F$1-(VALUE(LEFT(A2,FIND("/",A2)-1))>$G$1), VALUE(LEFT(A2,FIND("/",A2)-1)), VALUE(MID(A2,FIND("/",A2)+1,2)))
Rows from a month after the closing month (December rows on a January statement) get the previous year. Format the column as a date and copy it over the original as values.
Citi’s own download
Citi online banking lets you download recent card activity; check the download options in your account for formats and range. Use the PDF statements for older periods.
Questions
Which Citi date should I keep?
Most bookkeepers use the post date, which is when the charge hit the account. The transaction date is when the purchase was made.