Convert a QNB or Gulf Bank Statement to Excel
Qatar National Bank and Gulf region statement conversion, Islamic banking terms, and bilingual layout handling.
Gulf region statements share a cluster of characteristics: bilingual layouts, Islamic and conventional products side by side, and Hijri dates on some documents.
Hijri dates
Some Gulf statements print dates in the Hijri (Islamic) calendar, either alongside the Gregorian date or instead of it. The Hijri year is currently around 1447 where the Gregorian is 2026.
A converter that does not recognise a Hijri date either rejects it, or worse, reads 1447 as a Gregorian year and places the transaction six centuries in the past.
Islamic product terminology
| Term | Means |
|---|---|
| Murabaha | Cost-plus financing |
| Ijara | Lease-based financing |
| Mudaraba | Profit-sharing deposit |
| Profit distribution | Return paid to the account holder, equivalent to interest |
| Takaful | Islamic insurance |
Profit distribution rows are credits and must appear in the export. A converter looking for the word "interest" to identify income will miss them, and the balance will not reconcile.
Verifying
Chain plus totals, plus a date sanity check given the calendar ambiguity. The chain is particularly valuable here because it is indifferent to terminology — it only cares whether the arithmetic works.
What you get back
| In the file | What you get |
|---|---|
| The bank's own columns | Every heading as printed, in the same order |
| Dates | Exactly as printed, in whichever calendar the statement uses. Hijri dates are not converted |
| Descriptions | Arabic and English text as it comes out of the PDF, with wrapped lines joined into one cell |
| Amounts | Each figure in the column the bank printed it in — profit distribution sits with the other credits |
| A Completeness sheet | Every row checked against the printed running balance, and the statement's own totals where it prints them |
Why the chain check is especially useful here
Gulf statements combine several sources of ambiguity: two calendars, two scripts, two numeral systems, and Islamic terminology that does not map onto debit and credit vocabulary.
The balance chain cuts through all of it. It does not care what a row is called or which calendar the date uses — it only asks whether the arithmetic works. If it reconciles, the amounts and their directions were read correctly, whatever the labels said.
That is why it is worth running as the first check on any statement in an unfamiliar format, rather than trying to validate the terminology by inspection.
Frequently asked questions
Are Saudi and Kuwaiti banks supported?
The reader works from the table on the page rather than a list of banks, so a statement from any Gulf bank is read the same way. The Completeness sheet tells you whether yours came out right.
Do I need to configure anything for Islamic accounts?
No. The terms come through as printed, and the balance check works from the figures rather than the words, so terminology makes no difference to it.
How are Hijri dates handled?
They are kept exactly as printed; nothing converts them. Where the statement prints a Gregorian date beside the Hijri one, use that column. A QBO, QFX or OFX download would read a Hijri year as a Gregorian one, so on a Hijri-only statement use the spreadsheet.
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Convert a statement now
Bank Statement PDF to Excel, or see every format. More in the guides.