Import a bank statement

Your bank gives you your transactions as a file. Once imported into To Bill, the file becomes a list of lines to reconcile with your invoices and expenses. To Bill keeps the file exactly as it is, as a supporting voucher, and compares its balance with your books.

Before you start

• Accounting must be turned on and your books opened. You need the right to manage the accounting to import.
• Download the statement from your e-banking, preferably in ISO 20022 format, as XML.

File	What it contains	When to use it
camt.053	The account statement: every booked transaction, with the opening and closing balance.	The recommended format, per day, week or month.
camt.054	The debit or credit advice: the details of the payments received or sent, for example each QR payment of a batched credit.	If your bank groups QR payments into a single amount on the statement.
camt.052	The report for the current day.	To see the transactions before the end of the day.
CSV	Your e-banking’s export as a table.	If your bank does not offer camt.

In e-banking, these files are often found under “Statements”, “Documents” or “Export”, named “camt”, “ISO 20022” or “XML”.

The format versions

To Bill reads the camt versions used in Switzerland: .001.02, .001.04 and .001.08, the only one banks will provide from 14 November 2026. You have nothing to choose.

Import the file

1. In the menu, click Accounting, then Bank. In the Statement tab, click Import a statement.

2. Under Account (1), keep From the file (statement IBAN): a camt file states its own account. Choose a specific account only for a CSV, or to make sure the file really belongs to that account.

   

3. Drag the file into the box, or click to choose it: an .xml or .csv file, 25 MB at most.

4. For a CSV, check the columns, then click Import (see below).

To Bill reads the file, then shows what it has done.

• N lines imported, and the statement’s balance on its date. If the statement does not give one, To Bill asks you to enter it.
• N lines handled automatically, with the details: the safe QR payments, the Stripe payouts, the lines booked by your rules, the bank charges, the returned payments, and the lines a rule only suggests, to confirm. See Bank rules and automations.
• The other lines wait for you in To do or Safe matches, with To Bill’s suggestion. See Reconcile payments.

If the statement’s account is not known in To Bill, the account is created from its IBAN. Then give it a name in the Accounts tab. See Add your bank accounts.

Import a CSV export

A CSV has no common format: To Bill shows you what it has understood before importing.

1. Drop the CSV file. The Check the CSV export window opens.
2. Under Bank account, choose the statement’s account, or New account… to create one.
3. Under Columns, check which column of the file matches the Date, the Amount, or Money out (debit) and Money in (credit) if they are separate, the Counterparty, the Text, the Reference, the Value date and the “Balance”. A date and an amount are the minimum.
4. Check the Preview: the first lines, as they will be imported.
5. Under Statement balance, To Bill takes the balance from the “Balance” column. Without that column, copy the closing balance from your e-banking and its date.
6. Click Import followed by the number of lines.

To Bill remembers your choice of columns for this account: with the next export from the same bank, it picks the same columns by itself.

Importing the same statement twice

There is no risk: each line has a fingerprint, and a line already imported is not taken again. The summary says N lines already imported. You can therefore import statements that overlap.

camt or CSV, not both

The same transaction imported once as camt and once as CSV does not have the same fingerprint: To Bill does not see the duplicate. For each account, choose one format and stick to it.

Other lines are not taken either, and the summary says so:

• Pending lines of a camt.052: the money has not moved yet. They will arrive with the next statement.
• Batches: if your bank grouped several payments into one amount and their details arrive later in a camt.054, To Bill replaces the total with the details, one line per payment. If the details are already there, the total is not taken.
• Fees that the bank deducted from a transaction become a separate line, marked “Charges”.

Check the balance

At the top of the Statement tab, To Bill compares the statement with your books, on the same date.

• According to the bank: the balance of the last statement imported, on its date.
• In your books: the balance of the ledger account on the same date.
• Difference (2): the gap, explained by the Lines still to do, the Ignored lines and, if anything is left, Unexplained: check it. A line ignored with the reason Already booked another way, or matched with the payroll, is already in your books: it does not count in the difference. When everything is reconciled, the difference shows Agrees.

If the file gives no balance, click the Enter the statement balance pencil (1), copy the Closing balance from your e-banking and its date, then click Save the balance.

Below the difference, the N of M lines done bar shows the progress. The statement link, on the right, downloads the imported file exactly as the bank provided it.

Without accounting

A company that does not use To Bill’s accounting can still import a camt.053 to record its clients’ payments, from Collections. See Collections.

Legal basis

• Accounting vouchers are kept so that any change is visible: To Bill keeps the statement file with its fingerprint and checks it before every download: Art. 3 GeBüV, the Ordinance on the Keeping and Retention of Accounting Records (German version: fedlex has no English one); Art. 958f CO.
• The camt.052, camt.053 and camt.054 formats are those of SIX’s Swiss Payment Standards. From 14 November 2026, only the 2019 version (camt.05x.001.08) is supported: SIX, Swiss Payment Standards, ISO 20022.