StatementHarborHow StatementHarbor works
No black box: here is the exact pipeline your statement goes through — all of it on your machine, none of it on a server.
The four-step pipeline
1. Read the PDF locally
Your browser reads the PDF bytes straight from your disk using pdf.js, the same open-source engine Firefox uses to display PDFs. The file is held in memory on your device. There is no network request carrying your data — the architecture makes privacy automatic rather than promised.
2. Extract text with positions
PDFs don't store tables — they store text fragments with coordinates. StatementHarbor groups fragments into lines by vertical position and re-orders each line by horizontal position, so column structure survives: dates stay dates, amounts stay amounts.
3. Recognize transactions
Pattern matching identifies dates (supporting MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, ISO, and "01 Mar 2024" styles), money values (handling commas, parentheses for negatives, and CR/DR markers), and balances. Description rows that wrap onto a second line are merged back together. Headers, page numbers, and balance-summary lines are skipped.
4. Export
Rows export as CSV (opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers) or QBO (QuickBooks Online's Web Connect format). Files are built in memory and saved via your browser's normal download — again, nothing transmitted.
Verify the privacy claim yourself
We'd rather show than tell. Two independent checks:
- Network tab test: Open your browser's developer tools → Network tab → convert a statement. You will see no request carrying file data. (The PDF.js engine itself downloads once from a CDN, then is cached.)
- Airplane test: Load this page, disconnect Wi-Fi, then convert. It works, because everything after page-load is local computation.
Known limitations (the honest section)
- Scanned statements: image-based PDFs need OCR, which isn't shipped yet. Text-based downloads from online banking parse cleanly.
- Unusual layouts: dense multi-column or landscape statements may need manual tidy-up. Misaligned rows are usually fixable — report the bank.
- Password-protected PDFs: not supported; remove the password in your PDF reader first.
Why this matters for bookkeepers
If you handle client files, uploading statements to third-party servers can conflict with confidentiality duties and data-protection obligations. A converter that cannot receive your files cannot breach them. That's the standard StatementHarbor was built to.