How to Import Multiple Bank Statements at Once in ReconLink

Last reviewed against current ATO guidance: 07 Nov 2026. Always confirm current thresholds, rates, and dates at ato.gov.au.

When you're managing bookkeeping across multiple clients — or a single client with several bank accounts — importing statements one at a time adds unnecessary friction. ReconLink's statement import system is designed to handle multiple files in a single session, covering CSV, Excel, and PDF bank statements from Australian banks.

This guide walks through the bulk import process, the file formats supported, and how to handle the common situations that come up when processing multiple accounts at once.

Supported File Formats

ReconLink accepts three statement formats:

CSV — the most common export format from Australian bank portals. NAB, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, and most business banking platforms offer CSV downloads from their transaction history screens. ReconLink automatically detects the column layout and maps date, description, debit, credit, and balance columns.

Excel (.xls and .xlsx) — some banks and accounting platforms export statements in Excel format. ReconLink reads both legacy .xls and current .xlsx files, extracting the transaction data from the primary sheet.

PDF — for banks that only provide PDF statements, ReconLink's PDF parser can extract transaction data from the most common Australian bank statement layouts. Confidence scores are shown per-row so you can review and correct any extractions the parser wasn't certain about.

Starting a Bulk Import Session

1. From the Transactions menu, select Import Statements
2. Click Add Files — you can select multiple files at once in the file picker (hold Ctrl or Cmd to select multiple)
3. ReconLink will display each file in the import queue with its detected format (CSV / Excel / PDF) and the bank account it will be imported to

If the bank account is already connected in ReconLink, the import is automatically associated with that account. If it's a new account, you'll be prompted to create it before proceeding.

Assigning Statements to Bank Accounts

Each file in the import queue must be associated with a bank account. ReconLink matches statements to accounts using the account number found in the statement header (for PDF and some CSV formats). Where the account number can't be auto-detected, you'll see a dropdown to manually assign the file to an account.

For clients with many accounts, it's worth naming bank accounts in ReconLink using the same name shown on the statement — this speeds up the matching process and reduces manual assignment.

Duplicate Detection

ReconLink checks for duplicate transactions using a content hash of each transaction's date, amount, and description. If a transaction in the imported file already exists in ReconLink (from a prior import), it's flagged as a duplicate and excluded from the import by default.

This means you can safely re-import overlapping date ranges without creating duplicate entries. A summary after the import shows how many transactions were new, how many were duplicates excluded, and how many had confidence issues (PDF imports only).

Handling PDF Imports

PDF statement imports include a confidence score for each extracted row. Rows with high confidence (above 90%) are imported automatically. Rows below the confidence threshold are shown in a review queue where you can:

• Confirm the extracted data as correct
• Edit any field (date, description, amount) before confirming
• Exclude a row that is clearly not a transaction (e.g., a page header mis-identified as a transaction row)

After reviewing the low-confidence rows, click Confirm Import to process the file. The confidence scores are visible in the transaction list after import via the source indicator icon.

Reviewing the Import Results

After all files in the queue are processed, ReconLink shows a summary screen with:

• Number of transactions imported per file
• Number of duplicates skipped
• Any files that failed to process (with the error reason)
• Total new transactions added

From the summary screen you can go directly to the transaction coding view to start assigning account and GST codes to the imported transactions.

Overlapping Imports and Duplicate Safety

You can bring the same account in from more than one source — a CSV download one month, a PDF statement the next, or statements that arrive via the per-client email inbox — and mix them freely across periods.

Where two imports cover the same period, ReconLink's duplicate detection prevents double-counting. The first copy of each transaction is kept; rows in the later import with the same date, amount and description are flagged as duplicates and excluded by default.

Tips for High-Volume Import Workflows

• Download statements in CSV where available — CSV imports are faster and more accurate than PDF parsing
• Use consistent date ranges — import by calendar month or quarter to keep your reconciliation periods aligned
• Name files before uploading — a file named NAB-Business-Oct2026.csv is easier to track in the import queue than statement_export_3.csv
• Check the duplicate count — if the duplicate count is unexpectedly high, it may mean a prior import overlapped significantly with this one; review to confirm the overlap was intentional
• Process PDF imports with the review step before confirming — don't skip the confidence review for PDF files, particularly for statements with tables that span page breaks

For practices with many clients, the most efficient workflow is to batch-download all statements at the start of the reconciliation session, then import them all in a single queue. ReconLink processes each file independently, so a large queue doesn't affect the accuracy of any individual import.