Splitting personal and business transactions in a bank statement CSV

Published 19 October 2026 · by Tekiba

Why not just delete the personal rows

A bank statement is a record of an account, not of a business. The balance at the bottom moves with every line, personal or not, and the reconciliation in your accounting software checks your books against that balance. Take the personal lines out and the two stop agreeing.

Intuit says this directly on its page about excluding bank lines: “If the downloaded transaction is a personal expense, it's best to add it to QuickBooks, rather than exclude it.” The reason follows: “Otherwise, your bank account in QuickBooks won't match your bank statement when you reconcile it.” Xero is as plain about deleting a line after import: “The Statement Balance of a bank account changes when you delete a bank statement line, so you should only delete a statement line if it’s a duplicate.”

So the split happens in how each line is recorded, not in which lines reach the books.

Mark the rows in a column of your own

Open the CSV in a spreadsheet and add one column at the right, after the amount and balance. Do not change the date, description or amount: those are the statement's figures, and the balance check depends on them. In the new column write one word per row.

Four words are enough: business; personal for money you take out for yourself; owner in for your own money paid into the account; and split for a line that is partly business, with the business share in a note beside it. A filter on the column then shows each group. Keep two totals. Drawings are the personal rows plus the personal part of every split row; money put in is the owner-in rows on their own. In the example, drawings are 81.20 (63.20, plus 40% of the 45.00 phone bill) and money put in is 500.00. Check each later against what the books say was drawn and put in; netting one against the other hides both.

Mark money coming in as well as money going out. A transfer from your own savings is not income, and the IRS's advice on a business checkbook is to keep a note of exactly this: a layout that “allows enough space to identify the source of deposits as business income, personal funds, or loans.”

Lines that are partly business

A phone, a car or an internet bill used for both is one line on the statement and two things in the books. The tax agencies agree on the principle, if not the method. HMRC: “You can only claim allowable expenses for the business costs.” and “You'll need to find a reasonable method of dividing your costs”. The CRA: “Also, since you cannot deduct personal expenses, enter only the business part of expenses”. The IRS, in its business FAQ: “Personal, living, or family expenses are generally not deductible.”

What the right share is depends on your circumstances and your country's rules, and this page does not try to say. What the CSV can do is carry the share you decided on, in the note, so that the same bill is split the same way every month and your accountant can see how.

Recording the personal lines

Each program has its own name for money a sole trader takes out of the business, and for money put in.

• QuickBooks Online. Intuit's page on paying personal costs from a business account starts: “When you use a business account to pay for a personal expense, you should record it in QuickBooks.” “After that, you can reimburse the company.” Its exclude page describes the usual account: “To avoid recording the transaction as a business expense, many business owners add the transaction to an equity account they've created, called an owner's draw”.
• Xero. The same help page that warns against deleting lines says: “For a personal expense, we recommend categorising it to a drawings account”. Its page on moving money in and out of a business covers both directions: “Record funds introduced or cash drawings.”
• Wave. “In the category field, select Deposit from Personal for income transactions or Personal Expense or Withdrawal for expense transactions.” Wave explains the effect for a sole proprietor: “When you pay for a personal expense from business funds, you bookkeep those transactions to owner investment/drawing to indicate that you took money from your business.”

Keep the two directions apart. A personal payment is a drawing; your own money paid in is a contribution, which Wave calls Deposit from Personal and Xero funds introduced. It is not income, and it is not a drawing with the sign reversed.

A company is different. Wave notes for incorporated businesses: “If a personal expense is paid through the business, it is considered a loan.” If yours is a company, ask your accountant how they want those lines recorded before you post a month of them.

A split line is recorded as two: the business share to its expense account, the rest as a drawing. Most programs let you split one bank line across categories; the amounts must add up to the statement's figure.

Before you import the marked file

Your extra column has to fit the importer. QuickBooks Online accepts fixed layouts only: “Each file needs either 3 (Date, Description, Amount) or 4 (Date, Description, Credit, and Debit) columns.” Save the marked sheet as your working copy. For QuickBooks, import a copy that keeps only Date, Description and Amount: LedgerDrop's free CSV also carries Balance and Check# columns, and those come out too, along with your marks. Other programs let you map or skip a column on the import screen; check before you rely on it.

The marks then do their work during categorising: filter the working copy on personal, and you have the lines to post as drawings; filter on owner in, and you have the money to post as a contribution. How to import a bank statement CSV into QuickBooks, Xero or Excel covers each importer's columns.

Keeping it up month to month

The marking is the step to add to whatever routine you already have. Most of a month's lines repeat: the same grocer is personal every month, the same printer is business. A bank rule that sends the grocer to drawings saves marking it again; a rule that guesses wrong posts the wrong line quietly, so check what rules did. A monthly bookkeeping routine with a bank statement CSV lays out the rest of the month, and handing bank statement CSVs to your accountant covers what to send when someone else does it: send the marked working copy with the file you imported, so they can see your reasons.

The longer fix is a second account. The IRS's guide to starting a business: “You should keep your business account separate from your personal checking account.” and “Use the business account for business purposes only.” Its FAQ gives the reason in one line: “It's a good idea to keep separate business and personal accounts as this makes it easier to keep records.”

Where LedgerDrop fits

When the statement is a PDF, LedgerDrop turns it into a CSV in your browser and checks every row against the balances the statement prints; the statement is not uploaded. It does not decide which lines are personal, and it does not drop any: the marking above is yours to do. The free CSV has Date, Description, Amount, Balance and Check# columns, with one signed amount per row; a column added at the right does not disturb the figures, but the QuickBooks import copy keeps only the first three. LedgerDrop Pro writes the layouts QuickBooks Online, Xero and freee ask for, which is the copy to import while the marks stay in your working copy.

What this page cannot tell you

Whether a particular cost is business or personal, what share of a mixed bill you may claim, or how a company should record money its owner spends: those depend on your country's rules and your circumstances, and the agencies quoted above publish far more detail than this page. Australia's tax office was not reachable when this page was written, so its rules are not quoted here. Menus in QuickBooks, Xero and Wave move between versions.

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