Moneydance Import: Convert PDF Bank Statements to OFX and CSV

How do I import transactions into Moneydance?

Choose File, Import in Moneydance and select an OFX, QFX, QIF or CSV file, then confirm the account the transactions belong to. Moneydance reads the file, adds the transactions as unconfirmed entries, and lets you accept them in the register. What it cannot do is read a PDF. If your bank only gives you PDF statements for the months you need, convert them to OFX first with the upload box on this page, then import the OFX.

Most people land here for one of three reasons. They just switched from Quicken or Microsoft Money and the bank connection in Moneydance+ only reaches back a few months. Their bank quietly stopped offering the OFX or QFX download on older statements. Or they are catching up a year of a small business account that was never tracked. In each case the history exists, but only as PDF documents, and Moneydance has no way to open them.

What Moneydance can and cannot import

Infinite Kind's own help center is blunt about the ranking: OFX and QFX files are the best formats to import, QIF files are second best, and CSV files are a distant third. PDF is not on the list at all. Here is how the files you are likely holding line up.

The reason OFX wins is the transaction ID. Every OFX transaction carries a FITID, a unique identifier. Moneydance keeps it, so if you import a file whose dates overlap with one you already loaded, it recognizes the transactions it has seen. QIF and CSV have no such field, which is why the same overlap in a CSV can leave you deleting duplicate rows by hand.

How do I import a PDF bank statement into Moneydance?

Convert the PDF to OFX, then import the OFX through File, Import. The conversion reads the transaction table on each page, including scanned statements through OCR, and writes one OFX file per statement with the date, signed amount, description and a stable transaction ID on every line. Here is the routine that keeps a year of history clean.

1. Upload one statement month with the box at the top of this page. Checking, savings, money market and credit card statements all work, digital or scanned.
2. Check the extracted rows against the PDF (dates, amounts, signs), then download the result as OFX.
3. In Moneydance choose File, Import and select the .ofx file. Moneydance reads the account details in the file and suggests a matching account.
4. Confirm or pick the account. Starting with the register of that account open removes one place to go wrong.
5. Review the imported transactions. They arrive unconfirmed, so accept them and fix payees and categories. If you typed some of these transactions in by hand earlier, delete the manual copies.
6. Compare the register balance on the statement end date with the closing balance printed on the PDF. When they agree, import the next month.

One month per file sounds slow, but it is faster overall. Each import is small enough to review, and the monthly balance check tells you at once whether anything was missed. A gap equal to one transaction means a line was skipped; a gap of twice a transaction amount means a sign came in wrong. Both are quick to fix in the register before you move on.

Moneydance import CSV: when a spreadsheet is the better route

CSV import works in Moneydance, it just asks more of you. You choose the field delimiter, set the date format and decimal character, then assign a Moneydance field to every column. The help center warns that the number of fields you define has to match the number of columns in the file, with extra columns set to Ignore rather than left out. CSV is also not accepted for investment accounts.

That trade can still be worth it. If you want to split a transaction, fix payee names in bulk, or delete transfers you already recorded before anything touches your Moneydance file, export the statement as CSV from the same upload, clean it in Excel or Numbers, and import that. Our PDF bank statement to CSV converter writes a single signed amount column with US dates (MM/DD/YYYY), which keeps the mapping screen short. For anything you will import as is, OFX is less work and safer.

Which route should you use?

For most people the answer is both: Moneydance+ or the bank's own download for the months the bank still serves, and converted PDF statements for everything older. The OFX files do not depend on a subscription and do not expire, so you can build the back history once and keep the files.

What the converted OFX file contains

Every export uses the OFX 1.02 SGML format with a statement header, the account number and account type read from the statement, and one STMTTRN block per transaction with TRNTYPE, DTPOSTED, TRNAMT, FITID and the payee text. Card statements go out as a credit card statement rather than a bank one, so Moneydance treats charges and payments the right way round. When the statement prints a closing balance, it goes into LEDGERBAL, which gives you the number to reconcile against.

Re-exporting the same statement produces the same transaction IDs. That matters if you convert a month, import it, then realize you uploaded the wrong page range and convert again: Moneydance sees the same IDs and does not double the register.

Switching to Moneydance from Quicken or Microsoft Money

Moneydance brings over data from both programs through QIF, and that covers the years the old software already held. The gap is usually the months after you stopped using it, or accounts you never tracked. Convert those statements to OFX and import them after the QIF history is in. If you are still deciding where to go after Money, our comparison of the best Microsoft Money replacements covers how each one takes your data. If you are staying on Money for now, the Microsoft Money import converter writes the same OFX Money Plus Sunset reads.

How much does it cost to convert a year of statements?

The demo converts up to 15 pages with no credit card, enough to test one or two statements end to end in Moneydance. A year of a typical checking account is 12 statements of 2 to 6 pages each, well inside the Starter plan at $49 a month (2,500 pages a month on the faster AI model, up to 25 pages per statement). Cancel after the month if the backlog is done. Bookkeepers catching up several clients, or anyone with statements longer than 25 pages, will want Plus for bulk upload of up to 50 files at once. See pricing for the current plans.

Compare that with typing: a business checking account with 80 transactions a month is close to 1,000 register lines a year, each one a chance to transpose a digit. The converter reads them in minutes and the balance check proves the result.