Can you download statements from your bank...?

rayui

I made a Smile bank account statement downloader, also! It's an extension for Google Chrome that downloads statements in QIF format, so is suitable for Quicken, YNAB, Microsoft Money, etc. It works really well for me, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can get it from the Chrome Web Store. I can't post links as I'm a new user, but if you google for "chrome web store smile downloader" it will be the first result

Enjoy!

hellopaul

I was about to start the painful process of closing my hideously terrible First Direct account and opening a Co-Op bank account, but thought I'd give them a call to check for what is, to me, one of the most important, but often missing, features of online banking:

The simple ability to download a year's transactions.

(I, and millions of others, need to do this to get the figures for our self-assessment tax returns. Yippee.)
Apparently this is beyond the capabilities of most online banks. I have created websites that include using online databases, and searching these databases is mind-bogglingly quick and easy, even if they contain millions of chunks of information. So performing a "give me all the data from 1st Jan to 31st December" is, from a coding point of view, as easy as falling off a log. But having said that, most of the serious parts of banks still work on 60-year old COBOL, so maybe it IS a big ask to get them to change it. BUT I have a feeling that NatWest online banking CAN download a year's data in one hit. I may be wrong - I stupidly closed that account when I had a moment of complete insanity and opened my pointless, god-awful First Direct account (which is currently broken, so I cannot log into it at all this evening). Maybe someone could confirm this for me?

I also have a Lloyds account, and that's limited to 90 days at a time for downloads. Oh, and the man I spoke to at the Co-Op bank (at 9pm on a bank holiday!) told me that there is no way at all to download data as .csv or any other format - you just have to pluck it from dozens of PDFs! My incredulous searching ("surely this can't be true!?") led me to the aforementioned Uncoop.me script (from 2013) that pulls the data from one screen's worth of transactions.

Needless to say, despite their offer of £150, I will not be opening a Co-op bank account, which is a shame because I love the way they are (apparently) ethically inclined.

SOOOO....to get to the point....
Can anyone out there in moneysavingexpert land tell me, with absolute certainty, which bank, if any, will allow me to download a year's transactions in one go? Thanks!

colsten

hellopaul wrote: »

Can anyone out there in moneysavingexpert land tell me, with absolute certainty, which bank, if any, will allow me to download a year's transactions in one go? Thanks!

None to my knowledge (though I might be mal-informed). But all will send / make available to you an annual (tax year) statement of interest to you.

Notwithstanding annual statement from your bank(s), nothing stops you to record your transactions as they happen throughout the year.

mgdavid

you can with Barclays, you select Statement, Account, Custom date range, tick all the boxes that appear, hit download and hey presto, all in one go!
But I'll admit - they are still separate monthly files.

Or you could just download the single Annual summary file, which shows any interest paid during the year on page 3

Robisere

I have recently switched from NW to TSB. Both banks offer statement downloads in csv and PDF formats. I download as PDF's, renaming each one with a date, as xx.xx before copying them to a folder with a Year heading. (using periods between the day/month, as Windows does not accept // separators.) These are eventually part of a backup of the whole computer system, so I always have a financial record. Printouts can then be made anytime necessary.

I guess there are those here who may see that as "OTT" or "OCD", but I have had occasion to find specific debits and/or credits and my system makes this possible. There are several examples of this from my past: a major one was defeating a Store Card bank, which chased my wife for payments that had been made two years previously. I was able to find and supply photocopies and involve a solicitor, who not only stopped the demands, but recouped his own costs and obtained a small amount of compensation for us. Financial affairs are a dangerous place in Britain today.

Chino

hellopaul wrote: »

(I, and millions of others, need to do this to get the figures for our self-assessment tax returns. Yippee.)

In which case you, and millions of others, are doing something wrong. I have never had any need for a year's worth of transactions in order to complete my tax return.

hellopaul

Robisere, you mentioned:

I have recently switched from NW to TSB. Both banks offer statement downloads in csv and PDF formats.

Do you recall if TSB allows you to download a whole year's transactions in one go? I'm tempted to switch to them, but a look at their internet banking demo video reveals that they probably use the same banking software as Lloyds (which would be logical considering they used to be the same company). This has that stupid 90-day per download limit, which I want to avoid. I know NatWest allows whole-year downloads (I just did it on my wife's NatWest account),so I'll probably end up going with them.

Chino:

In which case you, and millions of others, are doing something wrong. I have never had any need for a year's worth of transactions in order to complete my tax return.

...so the parts of the Self Assessment form where you work out your expenditure, income, etc. just magically fill themselves in?

This is exactly the situation everyone (other than Chino) faces when trying to download a year's transactions. Note that this article was written in January 2013, and nothing's improved.

Because I have to fill in UK (tax year April-April) AND USA (tax year Jan-Dec) for a few accounts, downloading and stitching together multiple 90-day files becomes a real pain (three accounts, two countries, four 90-day downloads = 24 downloads to stitch together). If anyone out there can confirm for sure a bank that allows this, I will probably switch to them.

(I wanted to open a Co-Op account, but their transaction-download process is abysmal, and although marcpalmer's system helps a little, it's still far from ideal).