Credit card statement to Excel or CSV: charges, payments and the sign convention

Card statements have no running balance and flip the sign convention. How to convert Amex, Chase, Capital One and other card statements correctly and verify them against previous and new balance.

Credit card statements look like bank statements but behave differently: there is usually no running balance, charges are printed as positive numbers, and payments or refunds are marked with a minus sign or "CR". A converter that treats them like a checking account gets every sign backwards.

How Rowledger handles card statements

1. It detects a card statement from the summary block (previous balance, new balance, minimum payment, payment due date, credit limit).
2. It applies the card convention: unsigned amounts are charges (money out), minus/CR amounts are payments and credits (money in).
3. It verifies: previous balance + charges − payments = new balance. The badge tells you whether the extraction is complete.
4. It exports with the same sign convention as bank accounts, money out negative, so the file imports into QuickBooks, Xero or Wave as a credit card account without manual flipping. QBO exports use the credit-card message set automatically.

Two dates per row

Most card statements print a transaction date and a post date. Rowledger keeps both; the Excel-friendly export has a Post Date column, and accounting imports use the transaction date by default.

Statement families

• American Express: Date, Description, Amount; payments shown negative.
• Chase, Citi, Capital One, Discover, Bank of America cards: sections such as "Payments and Other Credits" and "Purchases", each with Trans Date, Post Date, Description, Amount.
• UK cards (Barclaycard, HSBC, Lloyds, Amex UK): Date, Description, Amount with CR for credits; day/month dates.

Excel tips

• Filter the Credit column to list payments and refunds.
• A pivot of Description against Debit gives spending by merchant.
• To compute interest paid, filter descriptions containing "interest".