M&T Bank Statement to Excel: Convert and Reconcile

TL;DR To get an M&T Bank statement into Excel, download the monthly statement PDFs, convert them so every transaction becomes one row with a real date, a description and a single signed amount, then check that the beginning balance plus all activity equals the ending balance. Keep check numbers in their own column and label each row with a type (deposit, check, card, ACH, fee). Use the quick transaction download for recent activity, and the statement PDFs for bookkeeping, loans, audits and taxes.

M&T Bank customers usually want their statements in a spreadsheet for one of a handful of reasons: building a budget, assembling records for a mortgage or business loan, handing a clean year to a tax preparer, or getting months of business activity into accounting software. Whatever the reason, the job is the same. You need one table, one row per transaction, with numbers Excel can add up, and you need to know the table is complete.

This guide walks through that job from the download to a reconciled workbook. It covers personal and business accounts, the sections you'll typically see on a statement, the conversion options, the checks that prove nothing went missing, and what to do next with the data. Online banking screens change over time, so we describe them in general terms rather than listing exact menu clicks.

Statement PDF or transaction download?

Most online banking platforms give you two different ways to get data out, and they suit different jobs.

Transaction downloads export recent activity, often as CSV or in a format for personal finance or accounting software. They're quick and handy for checking what cleared this week. The trade-offs: the date range may be limited, pending items can sneak in, and there's no official beginning or ending balance to check against.

Monthly statement PDFs are the bank's official record for each period. They list every posted transaction along with the period's opening and closing balances, fees and interest, and on many checking accounts a separate list of checks paid. Statements usually go back further than downloads, and they're what lenders, auditors and accountants ask for.

A simple rule: if anyone else is going to rely on the numbers, or if you need to reconcile, start from the statements. Download every month for every account you need and give the files consistent names, for example mt-checking-2026-04.pdf and mt-business-2026-04.pdf. If you need months that are no longer available in online banking, our guide to getting old bank statements covers the usual options.

What's on a typical M&T checking statement

Layouts differ between personal and business accounts and change over the years, but most checking statements contain some version of these blocks:

• Account summary: beginning balance, deposits and other credits, withdrawals and other debits, checks paid, service charges, and ending balance.
• Deposits and credits: payroll, transfers in, mobile and branch deposits, merchant settlements.
• Withdrawals and debits: debit card purchases, ACH payments, online bill payments, transfers out, wires.
• Checks paid: check number, date paid and amount, often printed in a compact grid with several checks per line.
• Fees and interest: sometimes in their own section, sometimes mixed into the debits and credits.
• Daily balances: the ending balance for each day that had activity.

The sectioned layout is what trips people up. Copy each section into Excel one under the other and you get a table that isn't in date order, where checks have no description and fees might be missing entirely. The goal of conversion is to merge every section into one chronological list and tag each row with what it was.

Three ways to convert

Copy and paste

For a single page with a handful of transactions, copying from the PDF viewer and pasting into Excel can work. Expect to fix things: columns land in the wrong place, descriptions that wrap onto a second line become separate rows, and amounts arrive as text. On a statement with a multi-column check grid, the grid pastes as one long row and you rebuild it by hand. It's fine for a one-off. It isn't a workflow.

Power Query

Excel's Power Query can read tables from a PDF. On cleanly laid out pages it often does a decent job, but it tends to treat each section as a separate table, so you end up appending tables, removing header rows, and sorting. It also doesn't know which year a date like "04/03" belongs to. If you like building repeatable queries, our Power Query bank statement guide walks through the steps.

A statement converter

A dedicated converter saves the most time on long statements or many months. SheetStatement reads the PDF, merges sections into one list, keeps check numbers, adds the year from the statement period, and runs a balance check before you export. You can download Excel, CSV, or formats for QuickBooks and Xero. The free plan covers 3 pages a month, which is enough to try a real statement. Starter ($9), Pro ($19) and Business ($39) monthly plans cover larger volumes.

Whichever method you use, aim for this layout:

A few rules make everything downstream easier:

• One amount column, money in positive and money out negative. If you need separate debit and credit columns for an import, it's easy to split later. Our guide to separating debit and credit columns shows both directions.
• Real dates, not text. Sorting and monthly summaries depend on it.
• An Account column, even if you only have one account today. When you add a savings account or a credit card later, you'll be glad it's there.

Prove the statement balances

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that matters. Before you categorize, import or send anything, check the math. Put the statement's beginning and ending balances in two cells and turn your rows into an Excel table named Tx:

=ROUND(BeginningBalance + SUM(Tx[Amount]) - EndingBalance, 2)

The result should be zero. If it is, you know every transaction made it across with the right sign. If it isn't, the size of the difference is a clue:

• Equal to one transaction: that row is missing. With check grids, a check is the usual suspect.
• Exactly twice a transaction: that row has the wrong sign.
• Equal to the fee or interest total: that section was skipped.
• A round number like 100 or 1,000: a digit was misread, more common with scanned statements.
• Divisible by 9: two digits may be transposed.

For a sharper check, compare each section with the account summary. If the summary shows total checks paid, compare it with:

=-SUMIFS(Tx[Amount], Tx[Type], "Check")

Repeat for deposits and for other debits. If deposits and debits match but checks don't, you know exactly where to look.

If you need to find the specific day where things go wrong, add a running balance column and compare it with the daily balance section of the statement. The first date where the two disagree is where the problem is. Our guide to the running balance formula in Excel shows several ways to build one. And if you just want to confirm totals without formulas, the free balance checker does it in the browser.

Business accounts: checks, deposits and the register

Business statements carry more checks and bigger deposits, so a couple of extra columns pay for themselves.

Keep a check register

With check numbers in their own column, sort by number and flag gaps:

=IF(C3-C2>1, "Gap after " & C2, "")

A gap doesn't automatically mean a problem. It may be a voided check, or one that hasn't cleared yet. But each gap deserves an explanation, and uncleared checks belong on the outstanding list in your reconciliation. Our guide to outstanding checks and deposits in transit explains how to track them.

Statements usually show just "CHECK" and a number. Keep a small lookup table of check numbers, payees and purposes, taken from your checkbook or accounting software, and pull the payee into the statement table:

=XLOOKUP(C2, Checks[Number], Checks[Payee], "Not recorded")

Rows that return "Not recorded" are checks that cleared the bank but never made it into your books.

Match deposits

One deposit line often represents several customer payments or a batch of card sales. Keep a deposit log with the date, total and the payments included, then match the statement line to the log by date and amount. When a payment processor deducts fees before paying out, record the gross amount and the fee separately so the net matches the bank. The pattern is covered in detail in our guide to reconciling Stripe payouts, and it applies to most processors.

Getting the data into accounting software

If the end goal is bookkeeping, you'll import the converted file rather than keep a parallel spreadsheet.

• QuickBooks Online accepts CSV with a single amount column or separate debit and credit columns, as well as QBO files. Our guide to importing into QuickBooks Online covers the mapping screen, and QuickBooks Online CSV import errors covers what to do when it rejects a file.
• Xero has its own CSV layout. See the Xero CSV import format.
• Desktop software and other apps often prefer OFX or QBO. Our comparison of QBO vs IIF vs CSV explains the differences.

Import one month at a time and reconcile it to that statement's ending balance before moving on. Importing a whole year in one go makes duplicates harder to spot and reconciliation much harder to untangle. If you're months behind, our guide to catch-up bookkeeping suggests an order of work.

Personal accounts: from rows to answers

For household accounts, the next steps are about answering questions.

1. Mark transfers. Moves between your checking, savings and credit card aren't spending. Add a Transfer flag so they drop out of totals.
2. Categorize. A small rules table that maps description keywords to categories gets you most of the way. Our guide to Excel formulas for categorizing transactions has patterns you can copy.
3. Summarize. A pivot table with Month in columns and Category in rows shows where money goes. See bank statement pivot tables.
4. Prepare for a loan. Filter for large or unusual deposits and write a short note on each. Lenders usually ask about them and will still want the original PDFs. Our guide to bank statements for a mortgage application lists what's commonly requested.

A worked example

A small landscaping company banks with M&T. It runs everything through one business checking account, pays subcontractors by check, takes customer payments by mobile deposit and card, and is four months behind on bookkeeping before tax season.

1. Download. The owner downloads the four missing monthly statements and names them by month.
2. Convert. Each statement becomes one table. Checks come out as individual rows with their numbers, merged into date order with deposits, card settlements and ACH payments.
3. Balance check. Three months come out at zero. The fourth is off by 1,240.00. The checks-paid total in the summary is 1,240.00 higher than the sum of check rows, so a check is missing. Comparing the check numbers against the grid on the PDF finds check 3318, which sat at the end of a row that wrapped. Adding it brings the difference to zero.
4. Register. Sorting by check number shows one gap. The owner's checkbook shows that check was voided after a misprint. A note goes in the register.
5. Deposits. Card settlements arrive net of fees. The owner records gross sales and the processing fees as separate lines so the books match the bank.
6. Import. Each month goes into QuickBooks Online as CSV, one at a time, and is reconciled to the statement's ending balance before the next one goes in.
7. Hand-off. At the end, the accountant gets the four PDFs, the combined workbook with types, check numbers and categories, and the reconciliation for the last month.

Total time is a fraction of retyping, and every number has been proven against the bank's own totals.

Multiple accounts and longer periods

Many M&T customers have more than one account: checking plus savings, or an operating account plus a payroll account. A few habits keep a multi-account workbook manageable.

• One table, an Account column. Combining accounts into one table makes pivot tables and filters easy. Our guide to combining multiple bank statements in Excel covers the mechanics.
• Balance each statement separately. The combined table should never be the first place you check totals. Prove each month for each account first.
• Flag transfers on both sides. A transfer from checking to savings shows up twice: a negative on checking and a positive on savings. Mark both so they cancel out in spending reports.
• Add a Statement column. Recording which PDF each row came from, such as 2026-04 checking, makes it easy to trace a number back to the source.

Troubleshooting

Dates come out with the wrong year. Statements that span December and January often print dates without a year. Assign the year from the statement period, not from today's date. Our guide to fixing bank statement dates in Excel covers the formulas.

Amounts won't add up. They're probably text. Remove currency symbols, commas and trailing minus signs, then convert with NUMBERVALUE or by multiplying by 1. See our guide to cleaning bank statement data in Excel.

Descriptions are split across two rows. Long descriptions wrap in the PDF. Merge the continuation row into the row above and delete it; it won't have a date or amount of its own.

The statement balances but the books don't. That's a reconciliation question rather than a conversion problem. The usual causes are outstanding checks, deposits in transit, or something entered twice. Our guide to finding bank reconciliation discrepancies walks through it.

Duplicates after import. You probably imported a transaction download and a statement covering the same days, or overlapping files. See fixing duplicate transactions in QuickBooks.

Scanned statements. Older statements obtained as scans need OCR. Expect to review the results closely and lean on the balance check. Our guide to converting scanned bank statements has tips.

Convert an M&T Bank statement

Upload an M&T Bank statement PDF to SheetStatement, review the rows, confirm the balance check shows zero, and download Excel, CSV, QuickBooks or Xero formats. The free plan covers 3 pages a month so you can test it on a real statement before deciding on a paid plan.

FAQ

Can I download M&T transactions without converting a PDF?

Online banking typically offers a download of recent activity in formats such as CSV. That's useful for quick checks. For full statement periods, older months, official balances, or anything you need to reconcile, convert the statement PDFs.

Why doesn't my converted statement balance?

The most common causes are a missing check from a grid layout, a skipped fee or interest section, a sign error, or a misread digit on a scanned page. Compare each section's total with the account summary to find which part is off.

How do I keep check numbers?

Use a method that puts the check number in its own column. A converter that recognizes the checks-paid section does this automatically. With copy and paste you'll need to split the check grid by hand.

Can I import the result into QuickBooks or Xero?

Yes. Export CSV in the layout your software expects, or a QuickBooks or Xero format, then import one month at a time and reconcile each to the statement's ending balance.

Does this work for business and personal accounts?

Yes. The conversion and balance check are the same. Business accounts usually add a check register, deposit matching and an import into accounting software.

How should I handle several accounts?

Convert and balance each statement on its own, then combine them into one table with an Account column. Flag transfers between accounts on both sides so they don't inflate income or spending.

What about statements older than online banking shows?

Ask the bank for copies through a branch, by phone or through a secure message. Older copies may come as scans, which need OCR and a careful review.

Is it safe to upload bank statements?

See the security page for how SheetStatement processes and stores statements. Review any service's policy before uploading financial documents.

How much does it cost?

The free plan includes 3 pages a month. Starter is $9 a month, Pro $19 and Business $39, for larger page volumes.