How to Convert an Al Rajhi Bank Statement to Excel (Saudi Guide)

Al Rajhi Bank is the largest Islamic bank in the world and the largest retail bank in Saudi Arabia, which means its statement PDF lands on more Saudi bookkeepers' desks than almost any other. And at ZATCA VAT time it is the same story every quarter: the transactions are all there — dated, described, debited and credited — but locked inside a document built to be read, not calculated with. So they get retyped, by hand, one row at a time.

This guide walks the whole path: getting the statement out of Al Rajhi, dealing with the password, converting it to Excel or CSV, verifying that the numbers actually survived the trip, and importing the result into Xero, Zoho Books or QuickBooks.

⚠️ One honest note up front. BayanSheet does not yet ship a hand-tuned template for Al Rajhi. Instead the engine uses smart auto-detection — it reads the layout of your PDF, handles both Arabic and English text and Arabic-Indic numerals (٠١٢٣), and still runs the full reconciliation check on the result. That works well, and it is not the same claim as a tuned template — so give your first Al Rajhi file a one-minute sample review.

Step 1 — Download the statement as a PDF

You want the bank's own PDF, not a mobile screenshot and not a printed-then-scanned page. A native PDF carries a real text layer, which is what makes clean extraction possible. Screenshots and scans force OCR, and OCR is always less accurate.

Channel	Rough path	Note
Mubasher Al Afrad (individuals)	Accounts → Account Statement → select period	The cleanest source for conversion
Mubasher Al Amal (business)	Accounts → Statements & Reports	For corporate and multi-user accounts
Al Rajhi mobile app	Account → Account Statement / Documents	May email the file to your registered address

Choose statement-cycle periods over custom date ranges where you can — the opening and closing balances are printed on a full cycle, which is exactly what the reconciliation step needs. And if you are assembling files for a VAT return or an external auditor, pull the whole period in one file. A full period means one reconciliation check instead of twelve separate ones.

Step 2 — Handle the password-protected PDF

If the PDF asks for a password when you open it, that is the bank's encryption, not a corrupted file. No converter can read it until it is unlocked.

Al Rajhi, like most Gulf banks, derives the password from details you already hold, and the covering email states the exact formula. Common patterns include some combination of:

Ingredient	Typical form
Date of birth	DDMMYYYY or DDMM
Customer / ID number	Full or last digits
Account number	Last 4–6 digits
Name	First few letters, often uppercase
Mobile number	Last digits

Always take the formula from the email that delivered the statement rather than guessing — repeated wrong attempts waste time, and the wording is right there.

Once you can open it, there are two routes:

• Convert it as-is. BayanSheet accepts encrypted PDFs and asks for the password locally in your browser. Neither the file nor the password is transmitted.
• Save an unlocked copy. Open the PDF, enter the password, then use Print → Save as PDF to write a decrypted version. Be aware that this route can rasterise some documents, turning selectable text into an image and forcing OCR — so prefer converting the original, or fall back to a fresh download from Mubasher.

There is a fuller treatment in our guide to converting password-protected bank statements.

🔒 Never email the password in the same thread as the statement. It defeats the entire point of the encryption. If you must send both to a colleague, use separate channels.

Step 3 — Convert the statement to Excel or CSV

With the PDF in hand:

1. Open BayanSheet in your browser.
2. Drag the Al Rajhi PDF onto the page — or use the file picker.
3. If the file is encrypted, enter the password when prompted. It stays on your machine.
4. Smart auto-detection reads the transaction table, maps the date, description, debit/withdrawal, credit/deposit and balance columns — in Arabic or English — and extracts every row, converting Arabic-Indic numerals to values Excel can sum.
5. The reconciliation check runs automatically and flags any row that does not add up.
6. Download the result as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV, depending on what your accounting software wants.

Nothing is uploaded at any point. The parsing runs as JavaScript inside the browser tab you already have open.

Because Al Rajhi is auto-detected rather than tuned, take one minute on the first file of a given format: open the converted sheet next to the PDF and spot-check a sample of rows and the totals. Once you have confirmed the mapping, subsequent statements in the same format behave the same way. The general mechanics are covered in how to convert a bank statement to Excel.

Step 4 — Verify the output before it touches your ledger

The costly extraction error is rarely the loud one — it is the silent one: a single dropped row, a decimal read wrong, or a withdrawal that landed in the deposit column. The table looks perfect, and the problem surfaces three weeks later as a reconciliation that will not close or a VAT return that will not tie out.

The governing equation:

Opening balance + total credits − total debits = closing balance

Run these checks on the converted file:

Check	What to look for	Why it matters
Balances reconcile	Opening + credits − debits = closing (SAR)	Catches dropped rows and misread decimals
Row completeness	Row count matches the PDF	Missing or duplicated transactions
Debit / credit split	Two distinct columns, correct signs	A merged amount column inverts your net movement
Descriptions intact	A wrapped narration stays on one row	Split descriptions create phantom transactions
Arabic-Indic numerals	Amount columns read as numbers, not text	Text amounts will not sum in Excel
Dates correct	Day and month not transposed	Wrong dates land transactions in the wrong VAT period

BayanSheet runs this reconciliation automatically after every conversion and marks the rows that do not balance — down to a one-riyal difference. That is arithmetic, not a promise. Where a converter simply hands you rows and tells you to review them carefully, it is transferring the checking work back to you. Our five-test method for evaluating any converter, including this one, is in how to verify a bank statement converter.

Step 5 — Saudi record-keeping and VAT via ZATCA

For a business registered for VAT, the bank statement is a core supporting document: it is where declared sales are matched against receipts, and where supplier payments tied to input VAT are traced.

📁 Ground rule: the Excel file is a working copy, not a replacement for the original record. Saudi record-keeping rules require accounting books and supporting documents to be retained for the statutory period, and the original Al Rajhi PDF remains the document of authority in a ZATCA audit. Keep both: the PDF as the record, the spreadsheet as the tool.

A layout that pays off later:

• Name files consistently: AlRajhi_account-no_2026-Q1.pdf with a matching .xlsx.
• Keep the balance column in the spreadsheet even after classifying — it is the fastest way to trace any discrepancy.
• Add a tax-treatment column (standard-rated, exempt, out of scope) rather than editing the original narration.
• Do not delete non-VAT rows; keep them so the sheet still ties back to the statement.

Step 6 — Import into Xero, Zoho Books or QuickBooks

Each package wants a slightly different shape, but the same two habits prevent most failures: standardise the date format across the whole column before exporting (DD/MM/YYYY is the usual Gulf convention, and a mismatch here is the single most common CSV rejection), and keep debit and credit separate — if the software wants one signed amount column, derive it with a simple positive/negative formula.

• Xero — Accounting → Bank accounts → the account → Import a Statement, then map date, description, and the amount columns.
• Zoho Books — Banking → the account → Import Statement, map the columns, and save the mapping so Zoho reuses it next month.
• QuickBooks Online — Transactions → Bank transactions → Upload from file; confirm dates parsed as dates, not text, before accepting the batch.

Import one month first and reconcile it before batching a whole year. If the mapping is wrong, you would much rather find out across 40 rows than 500.

Common mistakes

• Converting a mobile screenshot instead of the original PDF.
• Skipping the reconciliation check because the table "looks fine".
• Keeping only the Excel file and deleting the original PDF — a mistake that shows up in an audit.
• Editing original transaction data instead of adding new classification columns.

Conclusion

Converting an Al Rajhi statement to Excel saves hours of manual entry, but the real value is in step four: verifying that the balances reconcile before the numbers reach your ledger. Download the original PDF, unlock it if needed, convert, verify, then import — and always keep the PDF as the record of authority.

Try it on a single statement at the converter and compare the output against the PDF in front of you — the first 10 pages are free and no card is required. For more accounting guides, browse the BayanSheet blog.