By The Income Tracker · Updated 8 September 2026 · 4 min read
The short answer
Open the PDF, select the transaction rows, copy them, and paste them into The Income Tracker. Each line needs a date, a description and an amount, which is exactly what a statement row is. No PDF converter, no upload to a stranger's server, nothing typed by hand.
Why paste beats a PDF converter
Search for "PDF bank statement to CSV" and you will find a dozen sites offering to convert it for you. Every one of them needs you to upload a document that lists your name, your account number and everything you spent. Some are fine. You cannot tell which from the outside.
Copy and paste sidesteps the whole question. The text never leaves your computer. The Income Tracker reads it in your browser, shows you every row it found, and lets you fix anything it misread before a single entry is saved.
Step by step
Open the PDF statement in any viewer: your browser, Preview on a Mac, Adobe Reader, whatever you have.
Click at the start of the first transaction row and drag to the end of the last one. Do not worry about grabbing headers or the balance column; extra text is ignored.
Copy (Ctrl+C on Windows, Cmd+C on a Mac).
Open The Income Tracker, go to Settings, then Import data, and click Paste. On a phone, long-press in the paste box instead.
Check the review screen. Each row shows the date, description and amount it found. Flip any row that landed as spending when it was income, then confirm.
What the app does with each line
It looks for a date anywhere on the line. Day and month without a year ("13 Jun") get the year of the month you are importing into.
It takes the last money-looking number as the amount. If a line ends with two such numbers, the pattern of a statement with a running balance, it uses the first of them and ignores the balance.
Amounts with no sign are treated as spending, because that is what most rows are. Salary and refund wording flips them to income automatically, and you can flip the rest with one click.
Lines with no amount at all (page headers, "Balance brought forward", addresses) are skipped.
Rows you have already imported are flagged as duplicates and unticked, so overlapping statements are safe.
When the text will not copy
If you select the rows and get nothing, the PDF is a scanned image rather than text. Two options. Use the bank's app or website to export a CSV instead, which every bank in our guides can do for current accounts. Or, for a short statement, type the handful of lines into the paste box yourself: a date, a description and an amount per line is all it needs.
Where this matters most
Savings accounts that only offer PDF statements, such as some Nationwide savings products.
Virgin Money accounts where the CSV export is not offered.
Older months at banks that keep a short CSV window but years of PDFs.
Credit card statements older than the export limit, such as Amex beyond two years.
The Income TrackerTrack it free. No account, no bank login.
Not as a file, and you do not need to. Copy the transaction rows from the PDF and paste them into The Income Tracker. It reads the date, description and amount from each line.
Is it safe to use an online PDF to CSV converter for a bank statement?
Only if you trust the site with a document that lists your name, account number and every transaction. Copy and paste keeps the text on your own computer, which is why we recommend it.
What if my statement has a running balance column?
The importer notices a line ending in two amounts and takes the first as the transaction, ignoring the balance.
The dates only show the day and month. Which year is used?
The year of the month you are importing into. Switch to the right month first if you are pasting an older statement.