For each client statement you convert, keep three things: the PDF as the bank issued it, the import file you actually imported, and a note of the balance check, meaning the opening balance, the closing balance, the sum of the rows and the difference. The import file cannot stand in for the statement. We wrote one statement into all seven formats Evidilo produces, and not one of the files carries the opening balance, so no file can be added up on its own.
We then took the same statement with one row missing, a statement that does not tie out, and wrote it into the same seven formats. The files came out under the same names, with the same closing balance and nothing to say a row was gone. Only the PDF and the note of the check can tell the two apart.
What does an import file keep of the statement?
The rows, and in three of the seven formats the account number, the period and the closing balance. The statement is one synthetic checking account ending 4417: an opening balance of 1,000.00, four transactions in September 2026 and a closing balance of 2,071.43.
| Format | Account number | Statement period | Opening balance | Closing balance | Running balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QBO, QFX, OFX | In full | Start and end | No | Yes, 2,071.43 | No |
| IIF | Last four, as the account name | No | No | No | No |
| CSV, Excel, QIF | No | No | No | No | No |
Every file was named statement-4417_2026-09 with its own extension: the account’s last four digits and the month. For a CSV, an Excel file or a QIF that name is the only place the account and the month appear, so a file renamed to export.csv no longer says whose statement it came from. What the OFX-family files hold field by field is in the OFX file format post, and the CSV and Excel columns are in converting a bank statement to CSV or Excel.
Can the file show that the statement did not tie out?
No. We left the 14 September transfer of -250.00 off the page and kept every balance the bank printed. Evidilo’s balance check held that statement for review, with the running balance breaking at row 3 and a difference of -250.00. Written out, its seven files held three rows summing to 1,321.43 instead of four summing to 1,071.43, and nothing else changed.
| Statement | Balance check | Rows in every file | Sum of rows | Closing balance in QBO, QFX, OFX | A word in any file saying it does not tie out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| As printed | Ties out | 4 | 1,071.43 | 2,071.43 | No |
| 09/14 row missing | Off by -250.00 from row 3 | 3 | 1,321.43 | 2,071.43 | No |
The arithmetic that exposes the missing row needs the opening balance: 1,000.00 plus 1,321.43 is 2,321.43, not the 2,071.43 the bank printed. No file holds that 1,000.00, so a reviewer holding only the import file has nothing to add the rows up against. In Evidilo a statement that does not tie out is not downloaded silently: it answers “This file does not tie out yet. We show the difference and ask you to confirm first.” Once someone confirms, the file carries no trace of that step. Why the check catches a missing row at all is covered in what a tied-out statement tells you.
What is Evidilo?
Evidilo is a bank statement to accounting import file converter. It adds up every row against the opening, closing and daily balances the bank printed and marks the first day that does not tie out, and its result screen shows the opening balance and the closing balance with the page each was read from, and the difference. It turns a PDF, a scan, a photo of a paper statement, a CSV, an Excel file, a Word document or an OFX/QFX file into QBO, IIF, OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV or Excel. Three statements a day convert free, up to 10 pages each, without an account.
What should the workpaper for one statement hold?
Enough for someone who was not there to repeat the check. Per statement, per account:
- The bank’s PDF exactly as the client sent it, not a re-saved or printed copy. It is the only document that holds the opening balance, every printed running balance and the bank’s own layout.
- The import file you imported, under the name it was written with. If you corrected a row or confirmed a statement that did not tie out, this is the file that went into the books, and it differs from the PDF.
- A note of the check: the opening balance, the closing balance, the sum of the rows, the difference, and the date it was checked and by whom. Copy the figures from the result screen; Evidilo shows them but does not export them as a file of their own.
- When the statement did not tie out, the day the check named, what was wrong, and what was done: a row added from the PDF, a row corrected, or the difference accepted with a reason.
The note is the part most often missing, and it is the one that makes the other two readable. A difference that matches one row exactly, as in what a reconciliation discrepancy’s size tells you, is quick to explain in a line and slow to work out again a year later.
How long do the records have to be kept?
For federal income tax, the IRS page How long should I keep records? starts from three years: “Keep records for 3 years if situations (4), (5), and (6) below do not apply to you.” Longer periods apply in the listed cases, for example “Keep records for 7 years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction.”
Bank statements count among those records. The IRS page What kind of records should I keep lists account statements among the documents for expenses, and says “It is important to keep these documents because they support the entries in your books and on your tax return.” Those are the IRS’s general rules, not advice on a given client, and the first page adds that “your insurance company or creditors may require you to keep them longer than the IRS does.”
How should the files be named and filed?
By client, account and month, with all three of a statement’s files kept together. Keep the converted file’s name as Evidilo wrote it, because for a CSV, an Excel file or a QIF it is the only record of the account’s last four digits and the month. A layout that works:
- One folder per client, one folder per account inside it, named by the last four digits.
- In each account folder, per month: the bank’s PDF, the import file, and the check note as a short text file or a line in a log.
- When you are catching up a year at once, check that each month’s opening balance is the month before’s closing balance before filing it. Catch-up bookkeeping starts from the oldest statement walks through that chain.
On Evidilo’s side, its security page says the audit log keeps the IP address of each upload, view and download, and that the log is kept also after the firm is deleted. That records who took a file and when; it is not a copy of the statement or of the check.
How was this checked?
On 1 November 2026 we wrote one synthetic one-page checking statement twice with pikepdf 10.17.0, once as printed and once with the 14 September row left off. Each went through Evidilo’s production code the way an upload is read and exported: the pages, the period, the account number and the rows, with no model involved, then all seven writers. Each file was searched for its rows, the account number, the period, the balances and any word about the check. The results are in dataset.csv, and check.py rebuilds the statements, writes the files again and re-reads both IRS pages.
No file was imported into QuickBooks, Quicken, Xero or any other program, so the tables say what the files contain and nothing about what a program does with them.
Questions about keeping converted statements
Is the converted CSV enough as a record of the statement?
No. In our test the CSV held the date, description and amount of each row and nothing else: no account number, no period and no balance. A CSV written from a statement with a row missing looked exactly like one written from the full statement, apart from the row.
Can I delete the PDF once the transactions are imported?
Not if you want to be able to show the import was right. The PDF is the only one of the files that holds the opening balance and the running balances, which is what the rows are checked against. None of the seven files Evidilo writes carries the opening balance.
Does a QBO or OFX file prove the statement balanced?
It carries the closing balance the bank printed, 2,071.43 in our test, and that figure was the same in the file written from the statement with a row missing. Without the opening balance the file cannot show whether its rows lead to that closing balance.
What do I record when a statement did not tie out?
The difference, the day the check named, what you found on the PDF at that day, and what you did about it. Evidilo asks you to confirm before it writes the file, and the file itself keeps no sign of that, so the note is the only place the decision is written down.
How long should I keep client bank statements?
For federal income tax the IRS starts from three years and lists longer periods, such as seven years for a bad debt deduction, and notes that insurers or creditors may ask for longer. Keep the PDF, the import file and the note of the check for the same period.