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Running balance checker for bank statements
Paste the rows of a bank statement with their printed balances. The running balance checker recalculates every row to the cent, marks the first row where the balance breaks and every break after it, and tells you the most likely cause.
- Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded
- Every row checked to the cent
- Names the likely cause of each break
- Excel, CSV or text copied from a PDF
Your rows
Stays in this browserLeave it empty to work it out from the first row.
Paste rows to see where the balance breaks
Date, description, amount (or withdrawal and deposit columns) and the printed balance. Straight from Excel, a CSV or text copied out of a PDF.
What a running balance check proves
Each balance on a statement is the one before it plus a deposit or minus a withdrawal. That chain is why a running balance check is so effective: if one row is missing, doubled or misread, the arithmetic fails at that exact row, and only there.
Comparing the opening balance plus the total movement with the closing balance tells you that something is wrong. It cannot tell you where. A 36.00 gap in a 400-row statement could sit anywhere, and finding it by eye means re-adding the statement. Checking row by row narrows it to one line.
This checker compares every row with the last printed balance above it, not with a total carried down from the top. One bad row therefore shows up as one break instead of turning every row beneath it red, and a statement with several problems shows each one separately.
How to check a statement’s running balance
- 1Copy the transaction rows from Excel, a CSV or the PDF, including the balance column, and paste them in. A header row is optional.
- 2Type the opening balance from the top of the statement, so the first row is checked as well.
- 3Look at the column list. The checker guesses which column is the date, description, amount (or withdrawals and deposits) and balance; change any guess that is wrong.
- 4Read the result. Green means every balance adds up. Otherwise each break gets a card with the expected and printed balance, the difference and the likely cause.
Diagnosis
What each kind of break means
The difference at a break, compared with the row’s own amount and its neighbors, usually points to one cause. These are the patterns the checker looks for, in the order it tests them.
Missing row
The balance moved by more than the rows explain. The gap is the amount of the missing transaction, often a row lost at a page break or a fee shown only in a summary box.
Duplicate row
A row repeats the one above it and the printed balance did not move. The bank posted it once and it was copied twice.
Sign flipped
The difference is exactly twice the row’s amount: a withdrawal sits in the deposit column, or a minus sign was lost.
Swapped digits
The amount the balance moved by has the same digits as the row, with two of them swapped. The checker tests every adjacent swap, not only the divisible-by-9 rule.
Rows out of order
One row breaks, the next breaks by the same amount the other way, and the total recovers. Nothing is missing: the rows are listed in a different order from the one the balance used.
Balance copied wrong
Same break-and-recover pattern, but the amounts do not explain a swap. The transactions are right and one printed balance was copied or read wrong.
Fixing a break, case by case
Start with the first break. Later breaks are sometimes knock-on effects of the first, and the checker labels those. Open the statement at that row and compare the date, the amount and the printed balance with what you pasted.
A missing row is most often at a page break, where a converter or a copy and paste drops the last or first line of a page. Fees, interest and returned-item charges printed in a summary box rather than in the transaction list are the next most common. The difference is the amount you are looking for.
A sign problem usually comes from a statement with one amount column where withdrawals are not marked with a minus, or from CR and DR markers that were dropped. If every row breaks, try Signs: Reversed before anything else.
Out-of-order rows are normal on some statements: banks often print same-day transactions in one order and calculate the balance in another. If the checker reports a break that recovers on the next row, swapping the two rows makes both add up and nothing needs fixing in your books.
Why 84.37 against 48.37 is a giveaway
It checks arithmetic, not the statement
FAQ
Running balance checker: questions
What is a running balance on a bank statement?
It is the account balance printed after each transaction: the previous balance plus a deposit or minus a withdrawal. Because every row depends on the one before it, the running balance is the quickest way to prove that no row is missing, doubled or misread.
Why doesn’t my running balance match the bank statement?
The usual causes are a row lost at a page break, a row copied twice, a withdrawal entered as a deposit, two digits swapped, or same-day rows listed in a different order from the one the bank used. Paste the rows into the checker and it shows the first row where the arithmetic stops working and which of these fits.
Is the data I paste uploaded anywhere?
No. The check runs in your browser and the rows stay in this page’s memory until you close or reload it. Nothing is sent to VouchRow or anyone else, and the input and results are excluded from session recordings.
Can I paste rows straight from Excel or a PDF?
Yes. Rows copied from Excel or Google Sheets arrive tab separated, and CSV files with commas or semicolons work too. Text copied out of a PDF usually works when the columns are separated by two or more spaces; if a column lands in the wrong place, change its role in the column list.
Do I need to enter the opening balance?
It is better to. With it, the first row is checked like every other row. Without it, the checker works the opening balance out from the first row, which means that row cannot show a break.
My statement lists the newest transactions first. Does that matter?
No. With row order on Auto, the checker tries both directions and keeps the one in which the balances add up. You can also set Oldest first or Newest first yourself.
What does it mean when the difference is divisible by 9?
Swapping two digits always changes a number by a multiple of 9, so 84.37 typed as 48.37 is off by 36.00, which is 9 times 4. A difference that divides by 9 is a strong hint to look for a transposition, though it can also be coincidence.
Does a clean result mean the statement is correct?
It means the rows you pasted are consistent with the balances you pasted. It cannot tell you whether the statement itself is genuine or whether a row was misread together with its balance, so compare the opening and closing figures with the statement too.
Skip the copy and paste
VouchRow’s bank statement converter reads the PDF and checks the running balance on every row that prints one, with each row linked to its line on the page, before you export to Excel, CSV or QuickBooks.