Convert a Fifth Third Bank Statement to Excel

Fifth Third statement structure, the check-image pages that carry no data, and how to verify the converted output.

Fifth Third statements often include pages of check images — scans of the cheques paid during the period, several to a page. Those pages need specific handling.

Check image pages contain no extractable data

A check image page is a grid of pictures. There is no text layer to read, and the numbers visible in the images are pixels, not characters.

Two things can go wrong. A converter might try to OCR those images and produce garbage rows from handwriting. Or, more subtly, it might count those pages toward a page limit and stop before reaching real transaction pages.

The correct handling is to recognise them as pages with no transactions on them and produce no rows from them. They are still pages of the PDF, though, and a page allowance counts every page — so if you are short of pages, remove the check images before uploading.

The Checks section

Fifth Third lists paid cheques with the cheque number, date and amount. The cheque number belongs in its own column — it is the field you reconcile against your cheque register, and matching on it is far more reliable than matching on amount alone.

Watch for gaps in the sequence. Fifth Third marks missing cheque numbers with an asterisk or a break indicator, which tells you a cheque in the sequence has not yet cleared.

Verifying

Beginning balance, deposits total, withdrawals total, ending balance — all four against your extracted data. The cheque count is also worth checking where printed.

Getting one chronological table

US statements are typed sections rather than a single list, and what you almost always want is one date-sorted table with proper debit and credit columns.

That means detecting each section, applying its direction to every row inside it, discarding its subtotal, and merging the result. Lose the section context and every amount becomes ambiguous, because the rows themselves carry no sign.

Reconciling cheques

For a business account, the cheque number column is the highest-value field in the export. Reconciliation against an issued-cheque register matches on that number, not on amount or description.

Two checks are worth running on it:

Every cleared cheque matches an issued one — an unmatched cleared cheque needs investigating
Gaps in the sequence — an issued cheque that has not cleared is an outstanding liability, and a long-outstanding one may be lost

Both are lookups once the number is in its own column, and both are impractical to do reliably by reading a PDF.

Frequently asked questions

Do check images cost pages?

Yes. Every page of the PDF counts against your page allowance, check images included. Remove those pages before uploading if you are short of pages.

How do I find outstanding cheques?

Compare your issued-cheque register against the cleared cheque numbers in the export. Anything issued but not cleared is outstanding.

Is the cheque number exported separately?

Yes, in its own column, where Fifth Third prints it in one, and stored as text in the Excel file so it stays exactly as printed.

Convert a statement now

Bank Statement PDF to Excel, or see every format. More in the guides.