How to Format BOC Scanned Statements for RAMIS Tax Submissions

If you are preparing tax records for a client, bank statements are often one of the documents you need to work with.

With BOC, you can download account records in several formats through Smart Online Banking, including PDF and XLS. BOC also supports formats such as QIF, OFX and MT940. The available statement data can include the transaction date, description, reference number, debit and credit amounts. But accountants and tax consultants do not always receive the statement as an Excel file. A client may send a PDF, a scanned statement or even a scan of a printed copy.

That is where the work starts.

What does RAMIS need from a bank statement?

A bank statement is not the tax return itself, and there is no general RAMIS requirement to upload every bank statement as a particular Excel file.

The important part is keeping proper records behind the figures used in the tax return. The Inland Revenue Department says taxpayers carrying on business or investment activities must keep sufficient records to record their transactions and determine their gains, profits or losses. It also requires source and underlying documents used to prepare those records to be retained. A bank statement can be one of those supporting records.

So when an accountant is preparing a RAMIS tax filing bank statement, the useful step is often to turn the statement into transaction data that can be checked against the client’s accounts and supporting documents.

Why a scanned BOC statement can be difficult to use

A PDF may look perfectly readable when you open it on your computer.

A scanned statement is different. It is basically an image of the document, so the transaction information is not always available as normal text.

You may have the date, description, debit, credit and balance on the page, but copying all of that into Excel can take a lot of time.

Descriptions can break across lines. Amounts can end up in the wrong column. Page headings can get mixed in with transactions. If the statement has many pages, checking everything manually becomes even more tedious.

This is one reason accountants searching for a BOC statement for tax return Sri Lanka may also end up looking for a bank statement converter or PDF-to-Excel tool.

What should you do with the transaction data?

The first step is to get the transactions into a usable format.

For example, you may want the statement arranged with the date, description, debit, credit and balance in separate columns. Once the information is in Excel or CSV, you can sort it, filter it and compare it with the client’s accounting records.

You can then look for things that need further checking.

A large credit may need to be identified. Regular payments may need to be matched with expenses. Transfers between accounts may need to be separated from actual income. Some transactions may need invoices, receipts or other supporting documents before they are included in the tax records.

The spreadsheet does not replace the original BOC statement. It simply makes the transaction data easier to work with.

Extracting and categorising a BOC statement

This is where a bank statement to Excel workflow can save time.

Instead of manually typing every transaction, you can extract the information from the BOC PDF or scanned statement and work with it in a spreadsheet.

You can then categorise the transactions based on the accounting work you are already doing. For example, you might separate business income, expenses, transfers, bank charges and other transactions that need review.

The categories should still be checked against the client’s records. A description on a bank statement does not always tell you exactly what a transaction should be treated as for tax purposes.

Where Banksheet can help

Banksheet can be used to extract transactions from BOC bank statements, including scanned PDFs.

It can turn the statement into structured transaction data that can be exported to Excel or CSV. It also checks the extracted transactions against the running balance on the statement, giving you another way to spot possible extraction errors.

This can be useful when you are working through several client statements during tax season and do not want to enter every transaction manually.

It is also worth keeping the original BOC statement alongside the spreadsheet. The original document remains the source record, while the extracted file is the working data you use for accounting and tax preparation.

What about BOC’s Excel export?

If your client can provide the original BOC XLS export, there may be no reason to convert it again.

BOC’s Smart Online Banking system already provides downloadable records and lets users select the columns included in the downloaded file. The available formats include XLS as well as PDF, QIF, OFX and MT940. The problem usually comes when the file you receive is a PDF or scan rather than a structured spreadsheet.

In that situation, a statement converter can help you get the transaction information into a format that is easier to check and work with.

Keep the statement and the working file together

For tax work, it is better not to treat the converted Excel file as a replacement for the original statement.

The IRD’s guidance says taxpayers should keep source and underlying documents used to create their accounting records. So the practical workflow is simple.

Keep the original BOC statement. Extract the transactions into Excel or CSV. Check the extracted figures against the statement and the client’s accounting records. Then use the information you have verified when preparing the relevant tax records and return.

RAMIS itself should not be treated as a bank statement conversion system. Its submission requirements can change, so the current IRD instructions should always be checked before filing. The IRD currently provides e-Services for filing returns and other tax activities. 

Try it with a BOC statement

If you have a scanned BOC statement sitting in a client folder, you do not have to start by typing every transaction into Excel.

Upload the statement to Banksheet, extract the transactions, check them against the running balance and export the data you need.

You can try it for free before using it for your next batch of client statements.