ukbankconv versus Excel Power Query and manual cleanup
By Arron Child. Claims checked 15 July 2026; stale pricing or capability claims enter a 90-day review queue.
Excel's Power Query can open PDFs directly (Get Data, then From File, then From PDF) and will detect tables in a statement. For a technically comfortable user it is a legitimate zero-extra-cost route, and for some documents it works well. This comparison is about where it works, where it quietly fails, and what the failure costs.
Who each option is for
Power Query suits someone who already lives in Excel, converts statements from the same bank in the same layout repeatedly, and is willing to build and maintain a query plus their own verification. A certified converter suits someone who wants the parsing and the verification done, across supported banks, without maintaining tooling.
Where Power Query is strong
- Already installed and free with Excel on Windows.
- Fully local: the PDF stays on your machine, same as the converter here.
- Repeatable: a saved query re-applies to next month's statement in one refresh, as long as the layout has not changed.
- Infinitely flexible downstream: the transactions land directly in your workbook model.
Where it quietly fails
Power Query's PDF table detection is generic, and inherits every failure in why generic tools lose transactions: wrapped descriptions split across rows, transactions swallowed at page boundaries, columns drifting between pages (each PDF page becomes a separate detected table that must be appended and aligned), and balance markers arriving as data rows. Building a robust query for one bank's layout is real work: unpivoting page tables, joining continuation lines, typing columns, handling the year-less dates some banks print. Maintaining it when the bank tweaks the layout is the same work again.
Most importantly, Power Query performs no verification. Nothing checks that the rows it produced reconcile against the statement's balances; that discipline is entirely on you, every single time.
The comparison in practice
| Power Query | ukbankconv | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Included with Excel | Free preview; credits for exports |
| Runs locally | Yes | Yes, in the browser |
| Supported layouts | Anything, with your effort | Certified banks only, refuses others |
| Wrapped rows, page breaks | Your query's problem | Handled per layout, tested in certification |
| Verification | None built in | Automatic; unverified results are labelled |
| Maintenance | Yours | Ours |
Honest bottom line
If you convert one bank's statements every month, enjoy building queries, and religiously reconcile the output, Power Query is a fine tool and this converter mostly buys you back maintenance time. If statements arrive from multiple banks, or the cost of a silent error outweighs the cost of a credit, certified parsing with built-in reconciliation is the safer default. Either way, do not skip the verification; that part is not optional in any workflow.
Checked 15 July 2026, against Power Query in Microsoft 365 Excel on Windows.