Home › Countries › United Kingdom › First Direct statement converter

First Direct statement converter

Based in Leeds, United Kingdom, First Direct provides statements to its customers as PDF documents in online banking. Convert First Direct statement PDFs to Excel, CSV or an accounting format — with a reconciliation check on every conversion.

Drag & drop statement PDFs hereor tap to choose files — multiple PDFs for batch mode

Privacy: uploaded files and generated exports are stored only briefly to complete your download and are automatically deleted within 15 minutes. Files are never used for any other purpose.

Convert a First Direct statement to…

First Direct statement to Excel

For reviewing, sorting and analysing the statement outside your accounting software.

First Direct statement to CSV

For feeding scripts, databases and anything that reads delimited text.

First Direct statement to OFX

For desktop accounting and personal-finance software that imports OFX or QFX.

First Direct statement to Xero

For historical imports, where the feed window has long closed.

Statements from United Kingdom banks print dates as day/month/year — 03/04/2026 means 3 April 2026 and amounts with a comma for thousands and a point for decimals (1,234.56) — the converter's locale-aware reader handles that layout, and then the reconciliation check proves the result: the extracted transactions must add up to the balances printed on the statement itself, or the conversion is flagged.

Trust in the output comes from the statement's own arithmetic. First Direct prints balances that its transaction list must sum to; the converter repeats that sum independently on the extracted data. A dropped row, a duplicated row or a misread digit breaks the chain and is flagged at the row where it breaks, with the expected and printed balances shown side by side.

Before converting, spend thirty seconds on the First Direct document itself: confirm the period matches the month you are closing, note the opening and closing balances, and scan for the period's largest transactions. Second, glance at the statement's own subtotals before converting: section totals for deposits, withdrawals and fees are free checkpoints that tell you where a flagged difference is likely to live.

In United Kingdom, bookkeepers commonly work in Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent; the Excel and CSV exports from this converter are the files those tools import, and the Xero export is laid out for direct import where the tool accepts it.

Catching up a year of First Direct books

Download all twelve periods first and convert them as one batch, then work through the reconciliation results month by month in order. Fix flagged months before importing anything: it is far easier to resolve a difference against twelve tidy statements than inside a year of mixed postings.

Which First Direct export should you download?

Start from where the numbers go next. Into a spreadsheet for your own work: Excel. Into accounting software: that tool's format — QuickBooks or Xero where offered — because its columns are already in the order the importer wants. Into older desktop software or a personal-finance app: OFX. Into anything else, or into cold storage: CSV, the format least likely to be refused. The transactions are identical in every file; only the packaging differs.

How to download a statement PDF from First Direct

  1. Sign in to First Direct online banking. Open the First Direct app or website and sign in. Statement PDFs sit behind the login — there is no public download.
  2. Open the account and find Statements or Documents. Statements usually live under the account menu, labelled Statements, Documents, or eStatements, depending on the bank.
  3. Choose the statement period. Download each period as its own file. The reconciliation check proves one statement at a time, which is what makes a long catch-up provable.
  4. Download or print to PDF. A downloaded PDF carries the text layer the converter reads. If the portal only offers a print view, print to PDF instead of taking a picture.
  5. Upload the PDF here. Add the file to the converter on this page. You can add several statement PDFs at once for batch conversion.

These are the general steps most banks follow for statement downloads; exact menu labels vary by bank and change over time.

Tip: where the portal shows a 'final' or 'corrected' version of a statement, convert that one — reissued statements supersede the original figures.

Questions and answers

How do I convert a First Direct statement to Excel?

Download the statement PDF from First Direct online banking, upload it to the converter on this page, and download the an Excel (.xlsx) workbook. The transactions are extracted, put into the same standard columns used for every bank, and checked against the statement's balances first.

What date and number formats do First Direct statements use?

Like most banks in United Kingdom, First Direct prints dates as day/month/year — 03/04/2026 means 3 April 2026 and amounts with a comma for thousands and a point for decimals (1,234.56). Conversion normalizes dates to an unambiguous form in the output while leaving the figures themselves untouched.

What does the reconciliation check do?

Where the statement prints opening and closing (or running) balances, the converter adds up the extracted transactions and compares the result with the statement itself. If the numbers do not tie, the conversion is flagged and the mismatched rows are marked — a failed check is never shown as a success.

How far back can I get First Direct statements?

That depends on the bank's portal — most keep at least a year of PDFs online, and older periods can usually be requested. However far back you go, download each period as its own PDF.

Is the converted file ready to import into my accounting software?

The QuickBooks and Xero exports are laid out in the column order those tools import. The plain CSV and Excel exports suit everything else, including spreadsheet review before import.

My First Direct statement has a running balance column. Is it used?

Yes — it is one of the strongest checks available. The converter walks the extracted amounts against the printed running balance row by row, so a single dropped or duplicated transaction is pinpointed instead of merely suspected.

What if two First Direct statements cover overlapping days?

Convert them separately and import only one version of the overlap. Banks occasionally reissue a corrected statement for a period; the later issue supersedes the earlier, and importing both would double the shared days.

Can I convert a full year of First Direct statements at once?

Yes. Download each month as its own PDF and upload them together — batch mode converts them in one run and, in Excel, adds a combined sheet. Each statement is still reconciled separately, because balances are per statement.

Are my statement files kept?

No. Uploaded files and generated exports are stored only briefly to complete the download and are automatically deleted within 15 minutes.

Bank statements in. Clean books out.

Your first conversion is free — no card, no sign-up — and every result is checked against the statement itself before you download it.

Convert a statement — free