Convert Vidanova Bank PDF bank statement to Xero

Vidanova Bank provides statements for business and personal current accounts in Curaçao, in Netherlands Antillean guilders (ANG) until 2025 and in Caribbean guilders (XCG) from 2025 on. The reviewed statements are business current account statements from 2024 to 2026.

Countries: Curaçao
Supported statement formats: PDF
Supported destinations: QuickBooks Online, Xero, CSV/Excel

Vidanova Bank PDF statement details

The following details were checked against Vidanova Bank business current account statements from Curaçao, 2024 to 2026, from two to eighteen pages each. The layout did not change between the years, but the currency did: the 2024 statement is in ANG, the Netherlands Antillean guilder, and the 2026 statements are in XCG, the Caribbean guilder that replaced it. The bank name is not printed anywhere in the text layer; the page is recognized by its "Statement of Account" title, the "BUSINESS C/A" account line and the "B/F Balance" and "C/F Balance" rows.

Settings for a Vidanova PDF statement

• Date: rows carry two dates, Date Posted and Value Date, as 02 MAR with no year. The statement date, 31 MAR 2026, is printed in the page header on every page and gives the year. The first row, 27 FEB B/F Balance, is dated in the previous month, so a statement that starts in January carries a December date from the previous year.
• Amount: comma for thousands, point for decimals. Credits are plain, 2,000.00. Debits carry a DR suffix with no space, 330.00DR, and amounts under one guilder have no leading zero, .06DR. A converter that reads 330.00DR as text and not as a number drops every debit.
• Account number: the account line prints the account number and the currency together, 3001165959 ANG or 3001271128 XCG, between "BUSINESS C/A" and the account name.
• Account type and currency: "BUSINESS C/A" is a business current account. The currency is the code after the account number: ANG until 2025, XCG from 2025 on. Two statements of the same account can carry different currency codes, and both are the same guilder at par.

Every transfer is three transactions

An outgoing transfer on a Vidanova statement produces three rows with the same reference number: the payment, OV24000009719 330.00DR, then Transfer fee 1.00DR, then OB .06DR, the turnover tax on the fee. All three are real debits and all three move the balance. A converter that merges rows with the same reference into one transaction loses the fee and the tax, and the balance no longer reconciles. A converter that keeps them separate produces three rows for every payment, which is correct, and the accountant can then match the fee and tax rows to an expense account by their fixed descriptions.

The payee is on the second line, and the reference is where the payee should be

For a debit, the Description column on the dated line holds only the transfer reference, OV24000009719. The payee comes on the next line as F/O: pooltech BV, and the memo on the line after, INVOICE 314 dec23. For a credit, the dated line has no description at all; the next line holds the sender's reference and BIC, I2400000410134 / MCBKCWCUXXX, then the sender's name, then the memo. A converter that takes the description from the dated line gets a reference number for every debit and nothing for every credit. The payee is the F/O: line for debits and the line after the BIC line for credits. Descriptions are in Dutch, English and Papiamentu as the customers typed them, huur maand JAN 2024, Salaris, Material.

A transaction can be split across a page break

Each page repeats the customer block and the column header, and a multi-line transaction does not wait for the next page. The OB .06DR row of a transfer can sit at the top of page two under the repeated header while the payment and the fee sit at the bottom of page one. A converter that resets its state at every page header treats the orphan row as a transaction without a payee, which it is, so the join has to be by reference number and not by position.

The value date can be earlier than the posted date

Loan repayments and month-end items print a value date before the posted date, 02 MAR posted with 28 FEB value. The running balance follows the posted date. A converter that sorts by value date reorders the rows and the balance check fails. The posted date is the transaction date.

The summary counts every row

The "Statement of Account" summary prints the number of items next to each total, + Deposits and other credits 51 63,334.94 and - Cheques and other debits 101 53,839.98. The counts include the fee and tax rows, so 101 debits on an 11-page statement is about a third payments and two thirds fees and taxes. The count is the check for the parse, and it is also the reason a monthly statement from a small company runs to eighteen pages.

PDF input challenges

A bank PDF can contain searchable text, scanned page images, or a mixture of both. Searchable text still needs layout analysis because transaction descriptions wrap, columns move, and headers or balances repeat at page breaks. A scanned statement adds OCR uncertainty.

Page breaks

A transaction may begin at the bottom of one page and continue on the next. Continuation pages can omit column headings, repeat an opening balance, or insert footer text and legal pages between transaction pages. A conversion should join split rows and exclude repeated page furniture before it writes the output.

OCR

On scanned pages, OCR can turn 0 into O, 1 into l, or 5 into S. It can also lose a minus sign or decimal mark, read two columns in the wrong order, or struggle with skewed and faint pages. The running balance is the best check: a damaged amount or missing row breaks the balance sequence.

PDF questions

Can I convert a scanned bank statement?

Yes. Review the OCR result and reconcile every balance movement. Scans with faint printing, rotation, or handwritten marks need more checking than searchable PDFs.

Why does copying and pasting a PDF into Excel fail?

PDF text stores page positions rather than a spreadsheet table. Wrapped descriptions, repeated headers, and visually aligned columns can paste in the wrong order or into the wrong cells.

How do I know whether the PDF contains searchable text?

Try selecting a transaction description in a PDF reader. If individual words can be selected, the page probably contains text. If the whole page behaves like one picture, it requires OCR.

Xero import settings

Xero imports bank transactions through Accounting, Bank accounts, Import a Statement (also reached as Manage Account, Import a Statement). The file goes into the bank account's reconcile list, where Xero matches each line to invoices, bills and bank rules, or creates a spend or receive money transaction.

• OFX is the format to aim for. It carries the date, the amount, a payee, a description, a reference, a check number and a unique transaction ID. Xero uses the ID to skip lines it already has, so re-importing a period does not double it.
• QBO and QFX are OFX with extra header fields for QuickBooks and Quicken. Xero reads them as OFX, either directly or after renaming the extension to .ofx. If a QBO, QFX or OFX file downloaded from a bank is rejected, the file usually has a header, encoding or date format Xero does not accept; converting it to a plain OFX fixes that.
• CSV works when the columns match what Xero expects. A CSV downloaded from a bank often needs mapping on import and sometimes fails on the date or amount format. A CSV written for Xero carries the column names Xero maps on its own: Date, Amount, Payee, Description, Reference, Check Number.
• PDF must be converted first, to OFX or to a Xero CSV.

Settings that matter:

• Account: the Xero bank account is chosen before the upload. The account number inside the file is not used to pick the account, but keep it stable per account so the file is recognized on the review screen.
• Account type: bank or credit card. Xero keeps the statement's sign convention for credit cards, so a card purchase stays a debit; the converter should not flip signs for Xero the way it does for some other targets.
• Dates: four-digit years. In CSV, use one order for the whole file and confirm it on the import screen; day-month and month-day are both accepted but Xero must be told which one.
• Amounts: one signed Amount column, or separate Debit and Credit columns, in a CSV. No currency symbols or thousands separators. Money out is negative in the single-column layout.
• Payee and description: Xero shows Payee as the contact and Description as the transaction text, and bank rules match on either. Put the merchant name in Payee and the bank's transaction text in Description. Reference is a free field that other targets do not have; use it for the bank's reference number.
• Transaction IDs: unique per line and stable per transaction, so a second import of the same statement skips what is already there instead of duplicating it.
• Balances: Xero does not read an opening or closing balance from the file. Check the statement balance in Xero against the printed closing balance after import.

Xero questions

Should I import OFX or CSV into Xero?

OFX. It carries the payee, description, reference and check number in separate fields and gives Xero a transaction ID for duplicate checks. CSV is fine when the file was written for Xero with the right column names; a bank's own CSV usually needs mapping and cleanup.

Xero says my OFX, QFX or QBO file is invalid. What is wrong?

Most often the file has a header Xero does not read, non-UTF-8 text, dates in a format it does not accept, or a missing transaction ID. Convert the file to plain OFX and import that. Renaming QBO or QFX to .ofx helps only when the content is already clean.

Why did Xero import only some of the transactions?

Xero skips lines whose transaction ID it already has, and for CSV it skips lines it reads as duplicates by date, amount and description. Two genuine identical lines on the same day can be dropped from a CSV. Use OFX with unique IDs for those.

Why are the dates wrong after a CSV import?

The date order was misread. A file with 03/04/2026 can be read as 3 April or 4 March. Set the order on the import screen, or export dates as YYYY-MM-DD, which Xero reads without asking.

How do I undo an import?

Open the bank account, go to the statement lines or Bank Statements tab, select the imported statement and delete it. The lines disappear from reconcile and the file can be imported again.

Can I import older periods into Xero?

Yes. There is no date limit on file imports. Import periods in order and do not overlap them, so the balance in Xero follows the statements.

Does Xero read the opening balance from the file?

No. The statement balance in Xero is computed from the imported lines. Compare it to the printed closing balance after each import. If they differ, a line is missing, doubled, or has the wrong sign.