“My Australian bank export imports wrong”
Australian exports are day-first like the UK but often use American-style software, and several banks write debits and credits in ways that invert once imported. The result is a file that looks fine and behaves badly.
Symptoms
Dates land a month away for part of the month Spending appears as income across the board The file imports as a single column
What actually causes it
Day-first dates in US-built software
Exports write 03/04/2026 for 3 April. Software defaulting to month-first reads it as 4 March, silently for the first twelve days of the month and with rejections after.
Sign conventions written from the bank's view
Some exports write withdrawals as positive because they increase what the bank has taken. Imported without adjustment, every purchase becomes income and every deposit a charge.
No header row at all
Several Australian exports start directly with data. Importers that assume the first line names the columns lose that first transaction and mislabel every field.
How to fix it
- Drop the file into the checker below — delimiter, column count, missing header and unusual amounts are all reported.
- Set the date format to day-first explicitly rather than accepting the default.
- Check the first few transactions against your statement for sign direction before importing the whole year.
- Add a header row if the file has none, naming the columns your importer expects.
Related import problems
Skip the manual edit — fix it automatically
The checker flags amounts written in unusual forms, which is the case where an inverted sign slips through unnoticed. Free, no signup, no upload.
Open the fixer