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User guide · Chapter 07 of 09

Scanned and photographed bank statements

Updated 2026-07-29 Next: Licence and seats →

A scanned or photographed statement is a picture of a page rather than text. BankWriter converts these as well. They take longer, and the quality of the scan decides how much checking you do afterwards.

Is your statement a scan?

Open the PDF in any reader and try to select a sentence with your mouse. Real text highlights word by word. A scan highlights nothing, or selects the whole page as a single block. Searching with Ctrl+F for a word you can plainly see is the other quick test. No result means there is no text to find.

Statements downloaded from online banking are nearly always text. Anything that arrived on paper and went through a scanner, an office copier or a phone camera is a scan.

What is different

Drop a scan the same way you drop any other PDF. Two things change.

First, it takes longer. A text statement converts almost instantly, while a scanned one can run to a minute or more depending on how many pages it has. Second, the result follows the quality of the original: a crisp page reads cleanly, and a faint or crooked one needs more of your attention.

While it works, the window shows progress and a rough time remaining, so you can tell it is still going.

What does the blue banner mean?

When some values could not be read, the review screen opens with a blue banner across the top. It tells you values are missing and asks you to review the empty cells. Re-scan with detailed scan sits on that banner.

That button runs a slower, more thorough pass over the same PDF. It closes the current review screen, shows the progress display again, and opens a fresh review screen with the new result.

Re-scan before you start editing. A re-scan produces a new review screen, so corrections you have already typed are not carried over.

When to use it

  • Several cells are empty, or whole stretches of a page look missing.
  • The scan is faint, greyish, or came from a phone photo.
  • The page is skewed enough that columns drift across the page.

When to skip it

  • Only one or two cells need fixing. Typing them is quicker than waiting.
  • The statement already shows Reconciled and the lines look right.

How do I get a better scan?

Tip — if you control the scanner, these settings make the biggest difference:

  • Scan at 300 DPI. Lower loses digit detail; much higher only makes the file heavy.
  • Choose black and white or greyscale. Colour adds nothing to a printed statement.
  • Feed pages straight. A crooked page is harder to read than a square one.
  • Keep the whole page in frame. A cropped edge can cut off an entire column.
  • Flatten the page — no shadow across the middle, no curl from a stapled corner.
  • One statement page per PDF page. Two pages scanned side by side read poorly.
  • Prefer a flatbed or a document feeder to a phone. If a phone is all you have, shoot square-on in even light rather than at an angle.

If a scan still comes out rough

The review screen exists for exactly this. Every cell is editable, and the totals update as you type. Click the magnifier on any row to Inspect it: the original PDF opens at that spot, zoomable, with the line highlighted. Comparing a faint digit against the source and correcting it takes seconds, not a re-type.

Work down the highlighted rows, fix what is wrong, then click Approve. See The review screen for the full tour, including editing, Inspect and the summary strip.

What to expect

Be realistic about a poor original. A faint, skewed or low-resolution scan is harder to read, and more likely to want a manual check before you export. That is normal, and it is why the banner and the flagged rows exist. BankWriter tells you where to look rather than exporting numbers it could not check against your statement's own totals.

A clean 300 DPI scan gives you the best chance of approving a statement without a single edit.

Still stuck

If a scanned statement will not convert at all, check two things. The PDF must not be password-protected, and each page should hold one statement page rather than a photo pasted into a document. Then try Re-scan with detailed scan once.

If it still fails, email support@bankwriter.com. Include your app version, shown in the footer of the main window, and a description of the statement. See Getting help for what else to send.

Never send us a client's actual statement unless we have specifically arranged a secure way to do it. Describe the problem instead, or send a page from your own statement with the numbers changed.

Stuck mid-statement?

Email support@bankwriter.com or open a ticket from your account — we aim to reply within 5 business days, usually much sooner. Never send a client’s statement.

Getting help