Bookkeeping With a Bank That Has No Feed: Monthly Statements, Uploaded and Reconciled

By Di Ma, Project Manager 26 OCT 2026 · 4 MIN READ

Fintech accounts such as Airwallex can send transactions to your bookkeeping every day. Many traditional banks cannot — or not for a small company's account. That sometimes gets treated as a problem. It isn't: the monthly bank statement is the bank's own, official record of every movement, and books kept from statements are just as complete and just as auditable. They are simply updated once a month instead of every morning.

Feed or statement: what is the difference?

A feed delivers transactions as they happen. The books are current to yesterday, and cash-flow figures are always fresh.
A statement arrives after the month ends and covers the whole month at once. The books for that account are current to the last statement — typically a few weeks behind at most.

For most small companies with a traditional bank account, monthly is entirely enough. What matters is that every month arrives, complete, and is checked against the bank's balance.

Coming soon: a daily feed for HSBC Hong Kong business accounts. HSBC Business Go can keep a Google Sheet of your transactions up to date every day; you share it with us read-only, and we turn it into bookkeeping entries each morning — drafts your bookkeeper signs off, with the monthly statement still checking every line and the closing balance. We are testing it now on HKD accounts and aim to offer it from the end of November 2026. You will need HSBC Business Go and a Google account.

What to upload

The full statement for each account, every month — all pages, including the summary page with the opening and closing balance. A month with no transactions still matters if your bank issues a statement for it.
The bank's own PDF or export, not a screenshot or a re-typed spreadsheet. An original statement is evidence; a screenshot of a few lines is not, and an edited file proves nothing to an auditor.
CSV when your bank offers it. An export with a running balance on every line can be checked row by row, which makes it the most exact way in. Some banks only let you export recent months, so download each month as it closes rather than leaving it for the year end.
Every currency section. Multi-currency accounts often print one section per currency on the same statement; each one is a separate account in the books.

How a statement is checked

A statement is only useful if what goes into the books is exactly what is on it. Three checks make sure of that:

Opening plus movements equals closing. Each account's opening balance, plus every credit, minus every debit, must equal the closing balance printed on the statement. If it doesn't, a line is missing or misread.
No line twice. Statements can overlap — a mid-month download followed by the full month — and the same payment must still be booked once.
The books agree with the bank. At each month end, the bank account in the ledger shows the same balance as the statement. That is the monthly bank reconciliation.

Reconciliation is what turns "we entered the statement" into "the books are right". It is also one of the first things an auditor checks: the year-end bank balance in the accounts must agree to the bank's statement, and to the confirmation the auditor obtains from the bank.

Mixing a fed account with a statement-only account

Many companies have both: an Airwallex account that feeds daily and a traditional bank account that arrives monthly. That works well, with one thing to expect. When money moves between them, the fed side shows it the same day; the statement side shows it when that month's statement arrives. In between, the transfer sits in the clearing account as money in transit — a timing difference, not an error (see transfers between your own accounts). It clears when the statement is in.

Common problems

A missing month. Every later month's opening balance then fails to agree. Upload the gap first.
Missing pages — often the last one, with the closing balance.
Statements for the wrong account, especially where one company has several accounts at the same bank.
Waiting for the year end. Twelve statements uploaded at once, with questions about January asked in the following spring.

How Certanta handles statement upload

Upload in your client portal, as PDF or CSV.
PDF statements are read line by line, skipping balance-forward lines, subtotals and interest that has only been accrued — only real movements become transactions.
CSV exports are checked on every row: each running balance must agree with the one before it, or the file is not imported at all — so an import is either exact or refused.
Each statement's opening and closing balance is checked against what is in the books for that account and period.
Overlapping statements never duplicate a line.
Transactions are classified and signed off by your bookkeeper, then reconciled monthly into the same audit-ready ledger as your fed accounts.
Which months are in is tracked for every account, so a gap is spotted, not discovered at the audit.

The Certanta client portal, general ledger for the fictional demo company's Hang Seng Bank HKD current account: an opening balance and the month's entries — rent, office expenses, freight, supplier payments, customer receipts, payroll and bank charges — each with its running balance and, where there is one, a link to the source document. — A bank account in the demo company's books, shown in the Certanta portal: every line from the statement, its running balance, and the document behind it.

Statement upload is available on monthly bookkeeping and on annual packages — see pricing. If you have more than two bank or payment accounts, each extra one is HK$150 a month or HK$900 a year.

Frequently asked questions

Can I do my bookkeeping without a bank feed?

Yes. A monthly bank statement is the bank's own record of every movement on the account. Books kept from statements are as complete and as auditable as books kept from a feed; they are updated once a month instead of daily.

Should I upload PDF or CSV statements?

Either works. A CSV export with a running balance on every line can be checked row by row, so it is the most exact. A PDF statement from the bank is the official document. Avoid screenshots and re-typed spreadsheets.

What is a monthly bank reconciliation?

Checking that the bank account in your books shows the same balance as the bank statement at the month end, and explaining any difference. It confirms that every transaction on the statement is in the books, once, and nothing else is.

What if I am missing a month?

Upload it as soon as you can. Without it, the opening balance of every later month will not agree, and the books for that account cannot be reconciled.

Will HSBC Hong Kong accounts get a daily feed?

We are testing one now. HSBC Business Go can keep a Google Sheet of a business account's transactions up to date every day; the client shares it with us read-only and we turn it into bookkeeping entries each morning, as drafts the bookkeeper signs off. It is being tested on HKD accounts and we aim to offer it from the end of November 2026. The monthly statement is still used to check every line and the closing balance.

Can I mix an Airwallex feed with statements from a traditional bank?

Yes. Both end up in the same ledger. Transfers between the two may sit briefly as money in transit until the traditional bank's statement arrives; that is a timing difference, not an error.

Any bank, one ledger

Daily feeds where your bank offers them, monthly statement upload where it doesn't — reconciled into the same audit-ready books. See a statement-fed bank account in the demo company.

Open the demo See pricing

This article is general information about bookkeeping practice, not advice for your company. Bank features and export options change; check what your own bank offers.