Claude Opus 4.6 Can Convert PDF Bank Statements to CSV — Here's the Prompt

Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6 on February 5, 2026. It is their most capable model yet, with a 1M token context window and improved reasoning across coding, analysis, and multi-step tasks. Naturally, we wanted to test whether it could handle a practical financial task: converting a PDF bank statement into structured CSV data.

Here is what we found.

The Test: A Real Bank Statement PDF

We uploaded a bank statement PDF from a sample account. The statement included an account summary table, multiple transaction rows with multi-line descriptions, deposits, withdrawals, and running balances across several pages.

This is the kind of document that accountants, bookkeepers, and business owners deal with daily when they need to get bank statement data into Excel or CSV format.

The Prompt We Used

Here is the exact prompt we gave Claude Opus 4.6:

This prompt targets the common pain points of PDF bank statement extraction: multi-line descriptions that break across rows, inconsistent date formats, currency symbols mixed with numbers, and non-transaction data cluttering the output.

The Results

Claude Opus 4.6 produced clean CSV output with the correct column structure:

The model correctly:

• Merged multi-line descriptions into single cells (e.g., "TRANSFER (Internet Banking) Account Replenishment (John Citizen 2050558317341020)")
• Reformatted dates from M/DD/YYYY to DD/MM/YYYY as requested
• Stripped currency symbols and commas from all amounts
• Separated withdrawals and deposits into distinct columns
• Included running balances where available
• Skipped headers, footers, and summary tables, extracting only the transaction list

The model also provided helpful notes about its extraction choices, such as explaining that the Balance column only shows the closing balance at the end of each day.

What Claude Opus 4.6 Does Well

For a general-purpose AI model, Claude Opus 4.6 handles this bank statement conversion task impressively:

1. PDF understanding: The model reads the PDF structure and identifies the transaction table correctly, even with complex multi-column layouts.
2. Instruction following: Every rule in the prompt was followed — date format, currency stripping, description merging, and output format.
3. Context awareness: It recognized that balance rows and summary tables should be excluded from the transaction list.
4. 1M token context: For statements with hundreds of pages, the expanded context window means you can process larger documents without truncation.

Limitations to Consider

While Claude Opus 4.6 performed well on this test, there are practical limitations when using any general-purpose LLM as a bank statement converter:

No Batch Processing

You need to upload and prompt each PDF individually. If you have 50 client statements to process for month-end, that means 50 separate conversations. A dedicated bank statement converter handles batch uploads automatically.

Manual Verification Required

LLM outputs can occasionally hallucinate values or misread numbers. For financial data, every row needs verification. Our Bank Statement Converter achieves 99.9% accuracy on transaction extraction with built-in validation checks.

No Direct Excel Output

Claude outputs CSV as text in a code block. You still need to copy it, paste it into a file, and import it into Excel. A purpose-built tool gives you a downloadable .xlsx file with properly formatted columns, dates, and numbers.

Inconsistent Results

Run the same prompt twice and you may get slightly different formatting or missing rows. Dedicated converters produce deterministic, consistent output every time.

Privacy Concerns

Uploading sensitive bank statements to a cloud-based AI service may not comply with your organization's data handling policies. Consider whether your clients' financial data should be processed through a general-purpose AI chatbot.

When to Use Claude Opus 4.6 vs. a Dedicated Converter

The Bottom Line

Claude Opus 4.6 is a powerful tool that can absolutely convert a PDF bank statement to CSV. For occasional one-off conversions, it works well if you take the time to craft a good prompt and verify the output.

For regular use — processing multiple statements, importing into bookkeeping software, or handling client documents — a dedicated bank statement to excel tool is faster, more accurate, and more practical.

Try It Yourself

Want to test the prompt above? You will need a Claude Pro or Team plan to access Opus 4.6.

Or skip the prompt engineering and get instant, accurate results:

Convert Your Bank Statements

You can test our converter with 10 free pages daily. Upload any bank statement PDF and get back a clean Excel file in about 30 seconds.

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Questions? Email [email protected]