CSV file formats for bank uploads

Details of the CSV file format for bank statement uploads to your FreeAgent account.

In certain circumstances you may wish to manually generate a CSV file of bank transactions for uploading into your FreeAgent account.

FreeAgent supports multiple CSV formats including support for banks that only allow downloads as a CSV.

How to format your CSV file:

To create a basic CSV to upload to FreeAgent you need to include three fields: date, amount and description.

• Column A, Date: Use the date format dd/mm/yyyy
• Column B, Amount: Formatted as 'Number' to 2 decimal places, transactions for money paid out of the bank account should have minus signs in front of them (-) and transactions for money coming into the bank account in should not have minus signs in front of them
• Column C, Description

Download an example

Click here to download an example file. Just open it in your preferred spreadsheet software, and then when you're finished, make sure to download or export it as a CSV file.

Checklist

In your CSV file make sure:

• You haven’t included a header row
• The date format is dd/mm/yyyy
• You've used a single 'amounts' column that contains both money paid out and money paid in
• There are no commas in your amounts columns
• You haven't included any quote marks (")
• Each description is on a single line with no carriage returns
• The file format is .csv (not .xls or .xlsx)
• A character delimiter of comma ',' is being used when you export your CSV file.

Regional settings

FreeAgent only supports CSV files with a character delimiter of comma ','.

If you're outside the UK, you may find that your computer uses a semi-colon ';' as opposed to a comma ',' to separate values. Don't worry though, this can be altered with a small tweak to your device's regional settings.

Windows users

To change your system settings in Windows, go to your Control Panel and select 'Regional and Language Options' (or 'Date, Time and Regional Options' then 'Regional and Language Option'). Select the 'Customise' button to see an option for 'List separator' where you can change the semi-colon to a comma.

Mac users

Go to System Preferences -> Language & Text -> Select the 'Formats' Tab and then select the 'Customize' button in the 'Numbers' section of the page. You'll need to change 'Number Separator' for 'Decimal' to a comma and to a 'Space' for 'Thousands'.

Select OK to save your changes and restart your Mac for the changes to take effect.