Reading scanned and photographed bank statements
How a firm gets a client's scanned or photographed bank statements into the books, and proves that no line, page or month is missing.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Some clients will never download a CSV file. They collect the bank's printed statements in a drawer, or photograph each page on the kitchen table and send the pictures in a chat message, a few at a time, sometimes upside down. For a small firm with many such clients, retyping those statements is a large share of the bookkeeping hours, and every retyped line is a chance to get an amount wrong.
Achekam can read scans and photos. Reading them is the easy part. The firm still has to make sure what was read is complete: every line of every page of every month. This article covers both.
Formats that import
Before accepting photos, ask whether the client can get something better. Achekam imports bank statements as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053 files. A statement downloaded from online banking, in any of those formats, is more reliable than a scan of a printout of the same statement.
Many clients who say they cannot download statements simply have not been shown how. Ten minutes on a call walking an owner through their bank's export screen can save hours every month after.
Direct bank feeds are not an alternative yet. As shipped, no live South African bank feed is connected, since every direct bank connection needs the bank's approval and credentials on Achekam's server first, and there are no bank feed connections for Nigerian or Kenyan banks. Statement import works for every bank, which is why getting imports right matters. The South African position on feeds is covered in bank feeds and statement imports.
Text recognition on scans and photos
When staff import a scanned or photographed statement through the firm's intake, it is read by text-recognition software that runs on Achekam's own server, which is on by default, and the result is checked against the statement's running balance.
Where the client's own books are on Achekam and the statement is imported there, a second route exists: an AI model can read scanned or unrecognised PDFs where the workspace has one configured, and every amount it reads must appear on the page. That rule stops a reading that adds or alters figures.
Either way, the quality of the image decides the quality of the reading. Give clients a short instruction sheet:
- Photograph each page flat, in good light, with the whole page in the frame, including the balances at the top and bottom.
- One page per photo, in order.
- No cropping, no fingers over figures, no shadows across columns.
- Send every page, including pages that seem to have nothing on them.
Opening balance plus movements equals closing balance
Every import is checked so that the opening balance plus the movements equals the closing balance. This is the most useful single test of a scanned statement. If the recognition misread an amount, or a line was cut off in the photo, the arithmetic will not work and the import says so.
When the check fails, go back to the image, not to guesswork. Find the line where the running balance first stops agreeing, read that amount from the page, and correct it. If the page itself is unreadable, ask the client for a clearer copy or the bank's own PDF for that month. Never adjust a figure to force the check to pass.
Missing pages and gaps
The balance check proves a statement is complete within itself. It cannot prove that the firm received every statement. A month with no statement at all, or a statement whose last page was never photographed and whose closing balance therefore came from the wrong page, can slip past.
Add continuity checks of your own:
- Each statement's opening balance equals the previous statement's closing balance.
- Statement dates run continuously, with no gap between one period's end and the next one's start.
- Statement or page numbers run in sequence, where the bank prints them.
- Every bank account the client has appears, including the credit card and the savings account the owner forgot to mention.
A gap found in May is easy to close. One found at year end, or by the auditor, means asking the bank for archived statements in a hurry.
Suggested matches a person accepts
Once imported, statement lines are matched to the books by suggestion, and a person accepts each suggested match. Lines with nothing to match become proposed journals, which are only candidates: only a person can approve and post one, and AI is refused both steps. Low-confidence fields and possible duplicates wait in the Intake Review Queue.
For scanned statements, the review step deserves a little more attention than usual. A misread date can push a line into the wrong month, and a misread description can lead to a wrong match suggestion. Look at the suggested matches with the image of the page beside you. Finishing the reconciliation is covered in finishing a bank reconciliation with explained items.
Keep the original
Keep the scan or photo the figures came from. Files sent for intake are filed as originals in the client's 'Uploads for processing' folder in the Document Centre, so the source of every imported line can be found again. Where a scan is kept in place of a paper original, the legal test for an electronic record may apply; in South Africa, section 16 of the ECT Act sets out when keeping a record electronically satisfies a legal duty to retain information, including requirements about accessibility, integrity and origin.
A worked example in words: a hair salon owner sends photos of three months of statements. The bookkeeper imports them; the first two pass the balance check, the third fails. The running balance stops agreeing on page two, where a shadow covers an amount. The owner sends a new photo of that page, the import passes, and the continuity check confirms each month's opening balance equals the previous closing balance. The bookkeeper then works through the suggested matches with the photos open.
Make the better route easy
For every client still sending photos, try once to move them to the bank's own download, and keep a short printed guide for those who cannot. For the rest, the balance check, the continuity checks and a careful look at the matches turn a phone camera into a workable source of bookkeeping records.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
