Bank statement OCR
You can OCR a scanned bank statement or receipt for free without uploading it: open the Maestro OCR tool, drop in the PDF, and the text is extracted on your own device.
Is it safe to OCR a bank statement online?
Only if the file stays on your device. Our tool runs Tesseract in your browser, so the statement and its text are never sent to a server. Many “free OCR” sites upload files to the cloud; read their privacy terms before giving them financial documents.
How do I get accurate text from a statement?
- Use the bank's original PDF if you have it; a digital PDF usually already contains selectable text and needs no OCR.
- For scans, use 300 dpi, flat pages and good light. Crop away stamps and handwriting.
- Check every amount after OCR. Tesseract can confuse 0/O, 1/l and drop minus signs or brackets.
Can OCR convert a bank statement to Excel?
Partly. OCR gives you lines of text; the columns, dates, debit/credit signs and running balance still need parsing and checking. For one or two statements, paste the text into a spreadsheet and use “Text to Columns”. For every month, that manual step is where errors creep in.
Why OCR text is not bookkeeping yet
Books need each transaction categorised, matched to receipts and reconciled to the closing balance. That is the part Talea automates. It is AI bookkeeping for small companies and founders: statements in, categorised and reconciled books out.