David Lock

Like tens of thousands of other small businesses I use my bank statements as the basis for noting down revenue and expenditure. I take a copy of the monthly statements and write a note, for example, against each cheque issued as to what it was for. Same for income. Then there are the SO and DDs to anotate.

Trouble is the staements are not designed for this and there is no damn room on the statement to do it properly. Now why can't a bank come up with a format which leaves some space for this sort of thing. It's not rocket science and, as I say, thousands of people, would benefit. I'd even pay a small amount to have statements reformatted in this way. And I don't want to use soft fancy software like Sage which is just more work and inputting.

Maybe some banks do this already? For my sins I use Barclays.

Comments and experience with other banks invited. dl

Scoobydiid

If you bank on line, you can cut the info out and paste it into a spreadsheet, then you will be able to do anything you want with it.
When I first started out I used to use spreadsheets, but soon you will find you are better using an accounts package such as Sage of Quickbooks.

Andy

[Davey]

As above, you can have online documents with banks like halifax and you can then export the data into what ever you like

To be fair you are living in the dark ages lol! Why not keep everything digital in the first place?

David Lock

Nothing wrong with the dark ages (just ask PSL )

I tried on-line banking when I looked after by dear old mum's finances but I got fed up with it crashing and always needing to be on the look out for scams.

I hear what you are saying about importing data onto spreadsheets but that is just more work. Scribbling down notes on statements is the easy option for me. I hate financial stuff and want the simplest solution dl

boxst

Sorry David, I would go with the online suggestions as Banks are trying to get away from printed statements and are certainly not really open to change anything on them.

I use National Westminster and their online system has always worked really well. Having said that, they just sent me an annoying device that I will have to use to add any new payees, but I haven't needed it yet so I'm still with them!

Steve

David Lock

Well sounds as if I'll have to move into the 21st century

But I think banks are missing a trick here as I bet a lot of people "of a certain age" would welcome my suggestion.

In fact I misplaced a statement and I phoned Barclays and asked them print off and send me a microfiche copy. I actually asked them that if I did on-line banking with them would I have been able to access an old statement. Answer no. Took them 10 days to send me the microfiche

dsmith

""always needing to be on the look out for scams."

Ok - I can see this is difficult. Dont ever click or follow any link to an on-line banking page contained in an email. Oh maybe thats not tooo difficult.

I too am a NatwEst On-line banking user - not perfect but has reduced by need to go to a branch to vary rare occasions. I can download statements into excel and sort/annotate etc to my hearts content.

Also annoyed about the immediate loss of flexibility with the new reader so may be looking for alternatives.