How to Convert a first direct PDF Statement to CSV or Excel
first direct will download your transactions, ninety days and two hundred rows at a time. A tax year needs more than that.
90 days, 200 transactions
first direct, part of HSBC Group, lets you download transactions from Online Banking to a file you can open in Excel. It covers the 1st Account, savings, ISAs and credit cards. The limits are specific: the default range runs back 90 days, and a download holds a maximum of 200 transactions.
Its PDF statements are far more generous. You can view and download up to six years of them.
The 200-row cap bites first. A busy account can pass 200 transactions inside 90 days, so a single download may not even cover the quarter. A tax year from 6 April to 5 April is at least five separate downloads, then a merge, with nothing to tell you if a busy stretch fell off the end of one.
first direct only offers personal accounts, so the people who need this are usually sole traders and landlords running income through a 1st Account, and the bookkeepers working for them.
Quick answer: first direct downloads transactions from Online Banking in windows of up to 90 days and 200 transactions. Its PDF statements go back six years. For a full tax year, download the monthly PDF statements and convert them in one batch rather than merging five or more capped downloads.
Six years of statements, 90 days of downloads
HMRC sets the floor for how long the records have to survive. A sole trader keeps them for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline for the tax year, so a year's records can need keeping for nearly seven years. A limited company keeps them for six years from the end of the financial year they relate to. For a sole trader or landlord on Self Assessment that means the PDF statements, not the 90-day download, are what will still exist when the question comes.
Twelve monthly statements converted together give you the whole year as one continuous file, with the opening and closing balances printed on each statement to prove nothing is missing.
Where each route stops
| Route | Formats | How far back |
|---|---|---|
| Online Banking download | Spreadsheet file | Up to 90 days, maximum 200 transactions |
| PDF statements (Online Banking and app) | Up to 6 years | |
| Mobile app | PDF statements | Download from the account's Statements |
The download limits are first direct's published figures for Online Banking. Statements are downloaded one statement period at a time from the Statements link on the transactions screen.
Converting the statements (4 steps)
- Download the PDF statements from first direct
Log on to Online Banking, choose the account, select Statements at the top right of the transactions screen and download each statement you need. In the app, use the three-dot menu on the account and choose Statements. - Open the converter
Register free at reconcileiq.com/bank-statement-converter, then open Bank Reconciler and the PDF converter inside it. - Upload the statements together
Drag in several months at once. Each statement is read on its own and the transactions come back as one continuous set, so there is no stitching files together afterwards. - Check the output, then download
The extracted transactions appear on screen before you download anything. Check the first and last rows against each statement's opening and closing balance, then export as CSV.
Always check the balances: every first direct statement prints an opening and a closing balance. If the converted rows carry you from one to the other, nothing was missed. It takes ten seconds and it is the only real proof of completeness, from any tool, including this one.
What comes out
first direct statements follow HSBC conventions, and each one becomes rows of date, description, one signed amount and the running balance. Money out and money in are merged into a single column, wrapped descriptions are rejoined, and a year of statements comes back as one file rather than twelve.
Page furniture is discarded: repeated column headers, page numbers, summary boxes and the small print on the last page. What you get is transactions and nothing else.
Convert Your first direct Statement
Upload the PDF, check the numbers on screen, download clean CSV. Your first statement of up to 10 pages converts free on a new account.
Convert your PDF now for freeFrequently Asked Questions
Online Banking downloads transactions to a file you can open in Excel and save as CSV. Each download covers up to 90 days and a maximum of 200 transactions.
You can view and download up to six years of PDF statements for most first direct accounts.
Download the twelve monthly PDF statements and convert them together. That gives the whole year as one file, which is quicker and safer than merging five or more capped downloads.
No, first direct offers personal accounts only. Sole traders and landlords who run their income through a first direct account can convert those statements for their bookkeeping and Self Assessment.
Your first statement of up to 10 pages converts free on a new account. Beyond that it runs on credits, and the cost per conversion is shown before anything is processed. Files are processed on our servers rather than in your browser, which is what lets scanned and photographed statements work as well as native PDFs.