A spreadsheet that opens is not necessarily a spreadsheet you can trust. Run these checks before reconciling, importing, or making a financial decision.
Try selecting individual text in the PDF. Image-only pages require OCR; selectable text usually reduces character errors. Check several pages because statements may mix digital and scanned content.
Decide whether one row means one posted transaction, one pending item, or one detail line. Wrapped descriptions should not accidentally become separate transactions.
Typical columns include transaction date, posting date, description, debit, credit, amount, and balance. Do not let visually adjacent values replace a defined schema.
Count the transactions in the source and compare them with exported rows. Exclude page headers and totals consistently, and record the rule used.
Repeated headers, carried balances, and the first or last transaction on a page are common sources of duplicate or missing rows.
Parentheses, separate debit and credit columns, minus signs, commas, and faint decimal points can change the meaning of an amount.
Where the statement provides beginning balance, ending balance, total deposits, or total withdrawals, compare them with calculated spreadsheet values. A matching total is useful evidence, but it does not prove every description is aligned correctly.
Look for letters inside numeric columns, impossible dates, unusually long descriptions, blank amounts, repeated rows, and sudden shifts in the number of populated columns.
Keep the source statement unchanged and record any corrections made to the extracted file. That creates a review trail if a number is questioned later.
Use review when the PDF is scanned, layouts change between pages, there are many transactions, or silent errors would affect bookkeeping. MessyFile reconstructs structured rows, flags low-confidence output, and requires human approval before delivery.
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