Import a Bank Statement Into Monarch Money

Monarch imports a CSV, not a PDF or OFX

Monarch Money is a modern budgeting app built around linked bank connections, and its manual import path is a CSV upload, not the OFX or QIF files the older desktop apps take, and certainly not a PDF. So to bring in a statement by hand, whether from a bank Monarch cannot connect or for history a connection did not pull, the file has to become a CSV. When your bank only hands you a PDF, converting it to a CSV is the step that gives Monarch a file it can read, so the transactions flow into the account and its category and budget views rather than staying locked in a document.

The columns Monarch expects

Monarch's CSV is forgiving about layout but clear about content. The columns it recognizes are date, merchant or payee, category, account, original statement, notes, amount, and tags, and of those only date, merchant, and amount are required. Any standard US date format works, whether 12/01/24 or December 1, 2024. Extra columns Monarch does not use are simply ignored, and it can even split multiple accounts out of one file. A converted statement gives you those core columns cleanly, so the upload has what it needs without you reshaping the sheet.

The debit sign convention

One Monarch-specific rule is easy to miss and important to get right: the amount column uses signs to show direction. A debit, a purchase or withdrawal, is entered as a negative number, either with a minus sign like -58.12 or in parentheses like (58.12). A credit or deposit is a plain positive number with no symbol, like 58.12. Get that backwards and your spending and income flip. A converted statement can apply this convention for you, outputting withdrawals as negatives and deposits as positives, so the CSV matches what Monarch expects on the first upload.

Flexible mapping and duplicate prevention

Monarch's importer does not force a fixed column order. It detects the required fields, account, amount, and date, by keyword and lets you confirm the mapping, so a converted CSV in a sensible order maps almost automatically. It also validates the mapping and checks for duplicates before it commits, which matters when an imported statement overlaps transactions a bank feed already brought in; importing to a synced account leaves its balance untouched. Between Monarch's duplicate check and reviewing the transactions in the converter first, an overlapping import will not double up your history.

Coming from Mint, and privacy

Many Monarch users arrived from Mint, and the same CSV path handles that migration: export from Mint and upload, mapping the old categories across. A converted bank statement fills the gaps that export misses, an account Mint did not cover or a period beyond its limits. Because the statement holds real account activity, the file is processed to build the CSV and then deleted automatically, with nothing retained on a server afterward, so the transactions land only in your own Monarch account and the source file does not linger anywhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions