Convert German bank statements to Excel

What Tallyscope reads in German (Deutsch) statements. The site is in English; no bank names are used or implied.

German bank statements to Excel

Statements written in German put the thousands separator and the decimal mark the other way round from English: a point groups thousands and a comma starts the cents. The file is read in your browser tab and every row is checked against the printed running balance. The German-specific parts follow.

German column headers the reader recognises

The statement-level labels Anfangssaldo and Schlusssaldo are recognised as the opening and closing balance. Matching ignores case, accents and punctuation, and the lists hold more words than shown. An unrecognised header can be assigned by hand in the column mapper.

A German sample, row by row

The figures below are synthetic and use German conventions for headers, dates and numbers. The opening label Anfangssaldo is the statement's starting balance. The same table, saved as a CSV, is read by the real parser in our automated tests, so what follows is what the reader actually does with it.

• 02.01.2026 is read as 2 January 2026. 2.500,00 in the Haben column becomes +2,500.00, and the printed balance 3.500,00 is 3,500.00, which equals 1,000.00 plus 2,500.00.
• 15.01.2026 is read as 15 January 2026. 745,50 in the Soll column becomes -745.50, and the printed balance 2.754,50 is 2,754.50.
• 20.01.2026 is read as 20 January 2026. 63,18 in the Soll column becomes -63.18, and the printed balance 2.691,32 is 2,691.32.
• 28.01.2026 is read as 28 January 2026. 12,40 in the Haben column becomes +12.40, and the printed balance 2.703,72 is 2,703.72.

Opening 1,000.00, plus the four movements (net +1,703.72), gives 2,703.72, the last printed balance 2.703,72. Every row agrees with the running balance, so this statement is shown as Verified.

Money out and money in in German statements

This sample uses two money columns, a layout found in many German-language statements: Soll holds money out and Haben holds money in, and each amount is printed without a sign because the column carries the direction. The reader takes the direction from the column and then checks it against the balance; if a column were swapped, the balance would not follow and the statement would not be marked Verified.

German OCR at a glance

Dates in German statements

Day-first dates with points, such as 15.01.2026, are read as day, month, year. Month names are read in full as well (15 Januar 2026), and a two-digit year such as 15.01.26 is accepted. When a statement holds only dates like 03.04.2026 that could be read either way, the order is decided from the whole document rather than from one row.

Examples that are read correctly: 15.01.2026, 15 Januar 2026, 15.01.26.

Numbers and signs

The amount 1.234,56 is read as 1,234.56, and 1.234.567,89 as 1,234,567.89. The Swiss style with an apostrophe (1'234.56) is read as well. A minus after the number (1.234,56-) and brackets around it both mean money out.

Examples that are read correctly: 1.234,56, 1'234.56, 1.234,56-, (1.234,56). The running balance is the final judge of every sign.

Scanned German statements and the OCR model

German is written in the Latin alphabet, so the bundled English OCR model already reads the digits, dates and letters of a German scan; umlauts or the sharp s are what a German model helps with. With the OCR language set to English only, nothing is downloaded; in automatic mode (the default) a poor read can trigger up to three trial model downloads from the jsDelivr CDN (cdn.jsdelivr.net), plus any language remembered from this session or detected earlier, and no statement content is ever sent. If your browser's language is German, its model (deu) is the first one tried. Choosing German by hand in the OCR language setting turns auto-detect off, and scans are then read with that model.

The file stays in your tab (every network use is listed here).

What is specific to German

The split between Soll and Haben columns is an accounting convention rather than a bank one: the first is read as money out and the second as money in. Where a statement prints one signed Betrag column instead, the sign decides, and the running balance (Saldo) confirms it.

The words Gutschrift and Lastschrift in a description are also used as hints for direction when nothing else settles it. A hint never upgrades a status: only the arithmetic does.

Convert a German statement

Add the file to Tallyscope (10 files at once are free), read each statement's status, fix flagged rows on the Review tab, then export: CSV is free for the first 25 rows; unlimited CSV and Excel, PDF, JSON, OFX, QuickBooks CSV, Xero CSV and a reconciliation report (PDF, plus an Excel sheet) come with the Day pass or Pro (pricing). Several German and non-German files can be merged into one table.

No accuracy percentage is claimed: layouts vary, and the arithmetic check says whether a given statement reconciled (how verification works).