Import Alliance & Leicester bank statement

Here are some instructions for importing transactions from an Alliance & Leicester business bank account into Clear Books. A&L provide several ways to do this, and I am going to talk about the two main methods that Clear Books supports.

The first way is the preferred method as it get’s the most detail from your bank statement, however you can’t do it for periods longer than 56 days at a time. I would advise that you break up your downloads into files covering one month at a time.

Preferred Method (.csv) – for short periods <= 56 days

In this example, I will export data for May 2009. The maximum date range for each download cannot exceed 56 days, so for simplicity we recommend you download one month at time.

al-download-statement

  1. Go to https://www.mybusinessbank.co.uk and log in.
  2. Click Statements in the left hand menu.
  3. Click the most recent statement in the list.
  4. You will be taken to a page showing the transactions on this statement. In the top left there should be a download box. Select “comma separated” from the drop down box, if it’s not already selected, and then click download.
    1. Select the account you wish to export for. NB: You should do each account separately.
    2. Specify the data range you want. E.g. 01/05/2009 to 31/05/2009
    3. Click the circle to the left of the date boxes (techies call this a radio box!)
    4. Click Download.
  5. The file should then be downloaded to your computer. From this point onwards you can follow the standard instructions for a bank import.

Alternative Method (.qif) – for longer periods > 56 days

In this example, I will export data for February 2009, although you can do longer time periods, such as a year.

  1. Go to https://www.mybusinessbank.co.uk and log in.
  2. Click Create Standard Data Exportin the left hand menu.
    1. Specify a description and file name, I use the same for both, e.g. current-account-feb09 (account name / date range)
    2. Choose the file format: QuickBooks
    3. Select content: Current Day
    4. Select the account you wish to export for. NB: You should do each account separately.
    5. Specify the data range you want. E.g. 01/02/2009 to 28/02/2009
    6. Click Export.
  3. The file should then be downloaded to your computer. From this point onwards you can follow the standard instructions for a bank import.