Convert a Discover statement to Excel or CSV

Quick answer

Discover issues credit card statements and, through Discover Bank, checking and savings statements, all downloadable as PDFs from your online account. Upload the PDF to QuickBankConvert, check the rows in the preview, and download CSV or Excel with a free account. Charges, payments, credits, fees and interest each come out as one signed row. You never share your Discover login.

Why a Discover statement is hard to use in a spreadsheet

A statement PDF is laid out for reading. Around the transaction list sit an account summary, payment information, rewards and interest sections, and notices that change from month to month. Copy that into Excel and the columns collapse, long merchant names wrap onto the next line, and charges and credits end up in the same column with nothing to tell them apart.

That is fine for a glance at last month, but it breaks when you want to:

• Total a year of card spending by merchant or category
• Separate business charges from personal ones for a tax return
• Back out fees and interest from an expense report
• Hand clean rows to a bookkeeper, or import them into QuickBooks or Xero

QuickBankConvert reads the transaction table of the statement and writes one row per transaction, keeping wrapped descriptions with the transaction they belong to.

How to download a Discover statement

1. Sign in at discover.com or in the Discover app.
2. Open the account: the credit card, or the Discover Bank checking or savings account.
3. Find the statements for that account and open the period you need. Menu names change from time to time, so follow what your screen shows.
4. Save it as a PDF. Use the PDF Discover generates rather than a screenshot or a print to image: a native PDF contains real text and converts more accurately.

Card and bank accounts have separate statements. If you hold both, download each one and convert them separately, so the card's rows and the bank account's rows stay in their own files.

On a computer the file is saved where you will upload it from, which is simpler than moving it off a phone.

How to convert it

1. Upload the PDF to the converter. It travels over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection and is parsed on our servers.
2. Check the preview against the statement: the first row, the last row and the closing balance or new balance.
3. Download CSV or Excel for a spreadsheet. For accounting software, see the QuickBooks guide, the Xero guide or the Quicken guide.

Each monthly statement is one upload. For a year of history, Pro's batch upload takes a set of PDFs in one go.

Credit card statements

Most Discover statements people convert are card statements. Three things to know:

• Signs. Purchases, fees and interest come out as negative amounts; payments, refunds and statement credits as positive. Confirm that on the first few rows, because accounting software can expect the opposite for a liability account.
• Fees and interest are rows of their own. That makes it easy to total them for a business return, or to leave them out of a reimbursement claim.
• Rewards. Cashback that is credited to the account appears as a credit when the statement lists it as one. Rewards summaries that are not transactions are not rows.

For more on card statements in a spreadsheet, see credit card statement to Excel.

Discover Bank checking and savings

Discover Bank checking and savings statements convert the same way. Deposits are positive, withdrawals and debits negative, and the running balance is filled in when the statement prints one. Interest paid on a savings account appears as a deposit, which helps when you reconcile the interest reported for the year.

Which file to download

A statement longer than your plan's page limit is turned away before it is converted, so it does not use up a conversion. Files can be up to 4.4 MB. Current plans are on the pricing page.

The QBO and QIF exports label the account as a bank account, including for a card statement. You choose the real account when importing; details are on the PDF to QBO page. For a spreadsheet this does not matter.

What comes out

One row per transaction with date, description, category, amount and balance (the balance only when the statement prints a running balance). Amounts are signed: money out is negative. The account number, statement period and opening and closing balances are read from the statement and shown above the preview so you can check them.

What to check, and what can go wrong

• Compare the totals. Before downloading, check the first and last rows and the closing balance against the PDF. We do not publish accuracy figures for Discover or any other issuer; the preview is there so you can verify the result yourself.
• Use the PDF Discover generates. A scan or a phone photo of a paper statement is an image, and it is read less accurately.
• Password-protected PDFs are supported: you are asked for the password when you upload.
• Your file is uploaded. It travels over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, is parsed on our servers, and a copy is stored. Ask us to delete it through the contact page. We never ask for your Discover login. See the Privacy Policy.

Related guides

• How to convert Discover bank statements to CSV
• Credit card statement to Excel
• PDF bank statement to CSV
• Import a PDF bank statement into QuickBooks
• Convert an American Express statement
• Convert a Capital One statement
• All bank guides