Docubrew Is Live: PDF Bank Statements to CSV

Six weeks ago I published a post about why I built Docubrew. It ended with a question I couldn't answer yet: keeping bank statements off other people's servers matters to me, but does it matter to enough people to be a product?

Today it's live. Docubrew is a bank statement converter. It takes a PDF bank statement and turns it into an Excel-ready CSV, and you choose where that happens, on your own Windows machine or in the cloud.

From PDF bank statement to CSV in a few seconds

The core is what I described in June. Let's say you drop in a JPMorgan Chase bank statement PDF. The app reads the layout, identifies the bank and the bank's statement format, and extracts each transaction with the date, description, and amount in their own columns. The CSV opens in Excel and imports into QuickBooks or Xero. Same output you'd get typing every row by hand, without the typing.

Currently, there's pre-built support for ten US banks, namely: Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, US Bank, PNC, Truist, Capital One, TD, and Fifth Third. A fallback parser handles most other US bank formats. It won't catch everything. More on that below.

You can check all of this yourself before paying anything. There are five free pages, and they work in the desktop app as well as the cloud. Convert a real statement and look at the result. If the columns come out wrong, you've lost nothing, and I'd like to know about it.

Why a local-first bank statement converter has a cloud option

If you read the first post, this is the part that might look odd. The entire concept was that your statement never leaves your computer. So why am I launching with a cloud version?

The honest answer is that keeping everything local is my preference. Some conversions happen away from your own machine. Some people want to see the output in a browser before installing anything on a work computer they don't fully control. And a business owner converting a few pages once a quarter needs a different setup than a bookkeeper handling statements for fifteen clients.

So it's a choice you make per job. For the desktop app, you install it on Windows, convert as much as you want, nothing gets uploaded anywhere. The cloud option is the concession, and I'll describe it as one. Files are encrypted on upload and deleted automatically within 24 hours. If that trade-off doesn't sit right for a particular client's statements, use the desktop app for those and the cloud for the rest.

One thing is the same in both, there's no AI involved. The parsing is rule-based, so the same statement always produces the same result. For client work, I think that predictability matters more than any feature I could list.

What it costs

There's no time-limited trial. Instead there's a free tier. Five pages with no signup, or a free account for seven cloud pages a day. That's enough to check whether your banks convert cleanly before you pay for anything.

There are two paid plans. Starter is $12.90 a month for cloud-only conversion, 240 pages a month, which covers light or occasional volume. Pro is $39.90 a month and includes the Windows desktop app with unlimited local conversions, plus 600 cloud pages for when you're away from your machine.

If you have one catch-up job, a shoebox of statements from a client who's behind, you can subscribe for a month, convert what you need, and cancel. Otherwise, keep the subscription running for the statements that come in every month.

What it doesn't do yet

I'd rather you hear the limits from me than find them after paying, so here they are. US banks only, for now. Windows only for the desktop app. If you want a native Mac version, email anson@docubrew.com and let me know.

It reads text-based PDFs, the kind your bank's website generates. Support for scanned statements is something I'm working on, but it isn't there yet. The output is CSV for now, which opens in Excel and imports into the usual accounting tools. Direct QBO and OFX export is on the list too.

If a US statement converts wrong or your bank isn't covered, reach out to me at anson@docubrew.com or use the "Report" feature in the app. I'll convert that statement for you personally at no charge. And I'll delete the file once it's done.

The question from June, now answerable

When I wrote the first post, "does keeping statements local matter to enough people" was a hypothesis. I could only ask it. Now there's a bank statement converter you can check it against.

So the ask is the same one I made in June. Try the free pages on a real statement. Tell me which banks you want us to support or whether keeping financial data on your local machine is important to you, or just a nice thought.

Docubrew is live at docubrew.com. The free pages are there. Try it on a statement you already have.