AIB estatements into Excel/spreadsheet

poker--addict

Hello

I want to review my spending in certain areas over the past year. I think the best way to compare the incomings and outgoings is to create an excel sheet.

Is there anyway to transfer all the statement data into excel?:(

thanks in advance.

keith16

Unfortunately AIB don't offer statements as an excel file. And converting pdf into xls is typically very difficult.

I would suggest moving this thread into the Development forum to see if they have any tricks up their sleeves. But for AIB to be unable to offer this service in 2013 is nothing short of scandalous.

jpm4

keith16 wrote: »

Unfortunately AIB don't offer statements as an excel file. And converting pdf into xls is typically very difficult.

I would suggest moving this thread into the Development forum to see if they have any tricks up their sleeves. But for AIB to be unable to offer this service in 2013 is nothing short of scandalous.

Why is it scandalous?

Mort5000

poker--addict wrote: »

Hello

I want to review my spending in certain areas over the past year. I think the best way to compare the incomings and outgoings is to create an excel sheet.

Is there anyway to transfer all the statement data into excel?:(

thanks in advance.

I usually select all the transactions, copy, paste, no problems.

Of course you can only see as far back as the statement lets you, but it will build up if you do this monthly.

keith16

jpm4 wrote: »

Why is it scandalous?

Because banks like AIB charge hefty quarterly fees and the ability to quickly analyse and reconcile your statements using excel should be a standard service in this day and age.

Honestly, with e-statements they are barely even trying. It's your same old statements but just in a useless format. All they are doing is saving themselves a few quid in postage and printing costs.

The likes of AIB are nothing more than a dinosaur of an institution unable to provide even a modicum of innovation to their customers.

jpm4

keith16 wrote: »

Because banks like AIB charge hefty quarterly fees and the ability to quickly analyse and reconcile your statements using excel should be a standard service in this day and age.

Honestly, with e-statements they are barely even trying. It's your same old statements but just in a useless format. All they are doing is saving themselves a few quid in postage and printing costs.

The likes of AIB are nothing more than a dinosaur of an institution unable to provide even a modicum of innovation to their customers.

Saving a few quid is probably a high priority there at the moment. Like someone said above - copy and paste from online, tweak a bit and that's it.

keith16

jpm4 wrote: »

Saving a few quid is probably a high priority there at the moment. Like someone said above - copy and paste from online, tweak a bit and that's it.

No, that's not it. What if you have a couple of years worth of data?

You have to spend ages formatting it, and then it's a process that needs to be repeated monthly.

Their priority should be the customer but time and again they have shown this not to be the case.

In any case, the few quid they do save is a drop in the ocean relative to the other shit brewing on their balance sheet.

poker--addict

thanks for replies. If i did the process monthly from the online banking and not the estatements the idea would be feasible however copy and paste from pdf estatement does not work well.

I agree with keith, the man on the street is banking electronically, the banks know this - they are already creating and promoting apps etc. The cost of such a facility would not be excessive in my (limited) experience. Again the banks seem to have a habbit of penny pinching when it comes to postage, replacement cards, anything the small man on the street requests.

Maybe Ben Dunne or Sean Quinn should make the request for such a facility?

keith16

poker--addict wrote: »

thanks for replies. If i did the process monthly from the online banking and not the estatements the idea would be feasible however copy and paste from pdf estatement does not work well.

I agree with keith, the man on the street is banking electronically, the banks know this - they are already creating and promoting apps etc. The cost of such a facility would not be excessive in my (limited) experience. Again the banks seem to have a habbit of penny pinching when it comes to postage, replacement cards, anything the small man on the street requests.

Maybe Ben Dunne or Sean Quinn should make the request for such a facility?

Yes, it is easier to copy and paste directly from the online banking page but the time frame is very limited.

Banks do not fundamentally understand the power of the internet and apps when it comes to the potential for users to look and understand their own data. They have no interest in it, as if they make it easy for users to understand their spending habits then it might lead to people spending smartly and minimising costs.

AIBs "app" is nothing more than a web-page and doesn't provide any added layers of functionality.

peterwhit

Good timing. After an AIB rant about just this elsewhere on boards.ie, I've found Wondershare PDF Editor, for Windows and Mac.

It's PDF-to-Excel is far better than even the latest Acrobat XI Pro (it mangled the conversion really h ORR ib ly). You can convert up to 5 pages per PDF for free, which suits just fine since most of my eStatements are shorter than that.

There's still a little cleanup to do, but it's 99% there. No typos, just some wrong columns here and there (not on a per-line basis, but per sheet). Bringing in 6 months of data took about 5 minutes.

Re eBanking, go look at what mint.com is doing. Light-years ahead of anything any Irish bank AFAIK is offering. And they've been doing it for years. Our banks were too busy flogging mortgages to spend a little time even offering the most basic Excel export, let alone personal finance analysis.

So, what to do with it now? Mint.com takes all the cryptic stuff and makes it more readable, and categorises purchases. Sigh.

EDIT: There seems to have been a change in eStatement PDF formatting in January 2012 or so...before that, Wondershare doesn't do as good a job...lots of extra spaces added. But it's still usable, the numbers are not mangled.

murphaph

keith16 wrote: »

Because banks like AIB charge hefty quarterly fees and the ability to quickly analyse and reconcile your statements using excel should be a standard service in this day and age.

Honestly, with e-statements they are barely even trying. It's your same old statements but just in a useless format. All they are doing is saving themselves a few quid in postage and printing costs.

The likes of AIB are nothing more than a dinosaur of an institution unable to provide even a modicum of innovation to their customers.

Spot on. My German bank(s) offer at least CSV export (which can be easily read by excel) and one bank offers direct .xls output. The bank has this data, it is just a matter of giving a damn about customer satisfaction.

A CSV export feature could be implemented in very little time by the development team.

peterwhit

I wonder are the banks uncooperative, or is the Irish market too small to launch a sustainable mint.com-like service? Or do existing services like Mint shy away from expanding internationally due to legal issues more so than operational issues?

peterwhit

UPDATE: So AIB are launching The Lab, a glitzy high-tech multitouch video wall vision of 21st century banking, in Dundrum shopping centre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uArCcCyvZJE&feature=endscreen

Chances of "save to Excel" being an option via the pinchable, spinnable, tossable interfaces?

I'm not holding my breath.

srsly78

Irish banks make loads of money charging people per page for statements, why would they allow you to just download the data for free?

Hilariously with BoI, the personal online banking system shows more statement history than the business one (which costs e15 per month).

I find UB much better, the history goes back further and it has simple export functionality.

peterwhit

> Irish banks make loads of money charging people per page for statements, why would they allow you to just download the data for free?

because their interest rate hike will cover any lost statement fees.

nicell

I know this is very little use to anybody (including myself), but I somehow managed to export my AIB transactions to a csv file.

The problem is that I don't know how I did it and so far I have been unable to recreate it although I am pretty sure that it was somewhere in the AIB internet banking portal.

I think it was a transaction search with very open perameters, because the document was named "Transaction_Export_01.09.2013_14.00.csv" and it includes every transaction on my account between September 2011 and September 2013 (which I have confirmed by creating a separate column that calculated the balance on an ongoing basis after each transaction).

I know I did not do it manually through copy and paste because it created columns with names that I would not have used, such as "Posted Transactions Date".

I can't find the facility any more or any reference to csv or exporting on the AIB portal and when I rang AIB they said that it was not possible (so I put in a request that they make it possible). I do know that it took me about 20 minutes of exploring the portal before I managed it.

Anyway the point I'm making is that someone else may be able to do what I did, and if they do, perhaps they could share their method here. I know I will if I manage it again.

Mort5000

Statements & Advices -> Historical Transactions -> Export Transactions.

That'll do it.

peterwhit

Mort5000 wrote: »

Statements & Advices -> Historical Transactions -> Export Transactions.

That'll do it.

Hi Mort, where exactly on the page is that? I only have four tabs across the top: Recent Transactions; Pending Transactions; eStatements; and eFee Advices.

Mort5000

peterwhit wrote: »

Hi Mort, where exactly on the page is that? I only have four tabs across the top: Recent Transactions; Pending Transactions; eStatements; and eFee Advices.

On mine it is between "Pending" and "eStatements".
You might need to put a call into support to work out why you're not seeing it.

peterwhit

Mort5000 wrote: »

On mine it is between "Pending" and "eStatements".
You might need to put a call into support to work out why you're not seeing it.

I just called them, and they said it's not a feature of Personal Banking customers, but perhaps for Small Biz customers. Do you have small biz online banking ?

Mort5000

Ah, yes I am.
Well there you go then..
Sorry.

nicell

Mort5000 wrote: »

Ah, yes I am.
Well there you go then..
Sorry.

Yes I can confirm that.

When I log into my own personal account there is no such tab; whereas with my other half's small business account it is there as you say.

Thanks Mort

srsly78

I think you end up paying e500/year for that extra tab Have they finally started offering a more competitive option?