Convert BBVA México statements (estado de cuenta) to Excel

How to download BBVA México statements

BBVA México gives you two things online, and only one of them goes back far enough for bookkeeping:

• Movimientos (movements): bbva.mx shows balances and movements up to about two months back — enough to check recent activity, not to rebuild a year.
• Estados de cuenta (statements): monthly PDFs for checking accounts and credit cards, available up to 10 years back in the app and on bbva.mx, free of charge. The PDF has the same validity as a statement issued at a branch and carries the fiscal data Mexican accountants need, such as the folio fiscal and digital seals.

In the app, BBVA's own guide says: open the menu → Consultar → Estado de cuenta, choose the card or account and the month, then download the document or switch on e-mail delivery (check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive). Source: BBVA México — how to get your statement by e-mail (Spanish).

Which formats BBVA México offers (and how far back)

BBVA México doesn't document an Excel, CSV or OFX export of movements for personal accounts, so the PDF is the format to work from.

Password-protected BBVA PDF statements

When you ask for the statement by e-mail, you choose a password at that moment. BBVA's guide says it must be longer than eight digits, with no special characters and no consecutive or repeated characters (source). The PDF that arrives is locked with that password.

You don't need to unlock it first: upload it as it is and type the password once. It's used to open the file and then discarded. If nobody remembers the password, download the same month again from the app or bbva.mx. More on removing the password from a bank statement PDF.

When you need to convert BBVA México PDFs

• More than two months of movements — anything older than the online window exists only in the statements.
• Statements from clients — contadores often receive estados de cuenta by e-mail, password and all, rather than a login. See bank statement conversion for accountants.
• A full year's bank reconciliation (conciliación bancaria) — twelve PDFs into one spreadsheet. See bank reconciliation in Excel.
• Credit card statements — see credit card statements to Excel.
• Paper statements — a scan or a phone photo works too.

What's in a BBVA México statement

Mexican statements follow Mexican conventions, which differ from the Spanish ones if you work with both countries:

• Numbers use a dot for decimals and a comma for thousands (1,234.56), as in the US — not the 1.234,56 used in Spain.
• Dates are day first. Movement tables often print just the day and an abbreviated Spanish month, such as 05/ENE, with the year taken from the statement period.
• Charges and deposits are typically in separate columns — cargos (money out) and abonos (money in) — rather than one signed amount. In the export, money out becomes negative and money in positive.
• Extra pages — summaries, fiscal data and legal notices sit around the movement table. Pages without transactions aren't counted.
• Credit card statements have their own layout: payment figures such as the minimum payment (pago mínimo) and the payment to avoid interest (pago para no generar intereses), plus installment purchases (meses sin intereses) listed separately from the month's movements.

Convert BBVA statements to Excel, CSV or accounting software

Upload the PDFs and every movement is read and checked against the statement's own figures: opening balance + money in − money out must equal the closing balance, and the running balance must agree on every row. Rows that don't add up are flagged with their page number, and a statement that doesn't balance uses no pages (up to 30 pages a month).

Export the result as:

• Excel with real dates and numbers, plus a Summary sheet by category and month
• CSV with DD/MM/YYYY dates for Mexican accounting software or spreadsheets that import CSV
• QuickBooks Online CSV, Xero CSV, a .qbo file for QuickBooks Desktop, OFX or QIF

Select a year of estados de cuenta — or an account and a credit card — and export them into one file in date order, optionally limited to a date range.

Questions