Import Bank Statements into Iris Accounting Software

Q: What CSV format does Iris require for bank statement imports?

Iris expects a flat CSV file with Date (DD/MM/YYYY format), Description (single line per transaction), Money In (positive credits, no currency symbol), Money Out (positive debits, no currency symbol), and optionally Balance. The date format is strict — Iris expects dd/mm/yyyy and will reject or misread dates in US format (mm/dd/yyyy) or ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd). Amount columns must be plain numbers with decimal points only — no £ signs, comma separators, or negative indicators attached to the figure. Multi-line descriptions must be merged into single rows before import. BankScan AI automatically formats any UK bank statement to Iris-compatible CSV in seconds.

Q: Why is my Iris bank statement CSV import failing?

The most frequent Iris import failures stem from five issues: (1) Date format mismatch — Iris is strict about DD/MM/YYYY; US-format and ISO-format dates cause rejection or misreading. (2) Multi-line descriptions wrapping into separate CSV rows, breaking the one-row-per-transaction structure Iris requires. (3) Currency symbols and comma separators in amount columns — Iris treats these as text, not numbers. (4) Decimal and currency inconsistencies — mixing pounds and pence in the same column or inconsistent decimal places. (5) Duplicate transaction detection — Iris flags previously imported transactions, which can block legitimate new imports when reference or narration fields overlap between statements.

Q: How do I import PDF bank statements into Iris accounting software?

Iris does not accept PDF bank statements directly — they must be converted to CSV first. This is the biggest workflow bottleneck for Iris users whose clients send PDF statements (common with HSBC business accounts, Nationwide, building societies, and older archived statements). Manual copy-paste from PDF to spreadsheet is slow and error-prone. Adobe Acrobat export to Excel then CSV gets you partway but still leaves multi-line description splits and date formatting issues. The fastest method: use BankScan AI to upload any UK bank PDF and download an Iris-ready CSV in under 30 seconds, with automatic handling of multi-line descriptions, grouped dates, and column mapping for all 16+ UK bank formats.

It's 10pm on a Wednesday. The office is silent. Your coffee went cold two hours ago. On your screen, Iris accounting software sits open — and in your inbox, a pile of client bank statements that simply will not cooperate. The Open Banking feed doesn't cover this bank. The PDFs are locked. And you've got a client meeting at 9am where the numbers need to be right.

If you're one of the thousands of UK accountants and bookkeepers who use Iris — IRIS Software Group's flagship practice platform — this scenario is all too familiar. Iris is a powerful system. It handles tax, accounts production, practice management, and compliance for firms of every size. But when it comes to getting bank statement data in? The import process has sharp edges. And it's those edges that turn a 10-minute task into a late-night ordeal.

Iris powers thousands of accountancy practices across the UK — from sole practitioners to top-50 firms. And yet, when you search for help on importing bank statements into Iris, there's remarkably little out there. Unlike guides for Xero, QuickBooks, or Sage (which are everywhere), practical Iris bank import advice is thin on the ground. That ends here.

This guide covers every method for importing bank statements into Iris — Open Banking feeds, manual CSV imports, the exact formatting Iris expects, the errors that catch people out, and how to automate the whole process for any UK bank. Whether you run a small practice with 20 Iris clients or a larger firm processing hundreds of statements a month, you'll find something here that cuts your import time dramatically.

Every hour you spend reformatting CSV files for Iris is an hour you cannot bill. Let's change that.

Why Iris Users Struggle with Bank Statement Imports

Before we get to the solutions, it's worth understanding why Iris bank imports cause so much frustration. It's not that Iris is a bad platform — far from it. The issue is that Iris was built primarily as a practice management and compliance tool, and its bank import functionality has grown around that core rather than being designed from the ground up for bank data ingestion the way some newer cloud platforms were.

The Open Banking Feed Gap

Iris offers automatic bank feeds via Open Banking for most UK high-street banks. When it works, it's exactly what you want — transactions flow in without manual intervention. But the coverage has holes, and those holes tend to be the ones your clients fall into:

Building societies: Nationwide and most other building societies lack reliable Iris feed support — and a surprising number of UK small business owners bank with building societies.
Challenger banks: Monzo, Starling, and Revolut business accounts have limited or intermittent feed connectivity in Iris.
Business accounts: Even for banks on the supported list, business current accounts sometimes restrict Open Banking access in ways that personal accounts don't.
Re-authorisation expiry: Open Banking mandates 90-day re-authorisation. When a client forgets to re-authorise, the feed goes silent — and you may not notice until month-end reconciliation reveals missing transactions.

The PDF-Only Problem

Many UK banks — particularly for business accounts — only provide statements as PDFs. HSBC Business, Nationwide Business, most building societies, and many archived statements from any bank arrive as locked PDFs with no CSV option. Iris does not accept PDF bank statements. You must convert them first, and that conversion step is where the time disappears.

The CSV Formatting Minefield

Even when you have a CSV from the bank, Iris is particular about how that CSV is structured. Date formats, column ordering, decimal handling, and multi-line descriptions — get any of these wrong and the import either fails outright or produces results you won't trust. Iris won't always tell you what's wrong; it'll just reject the file or silently misinterpret your data.

Reality check: An Iris-using accountancy practice with 30 clients might have clients banking with 10-12 different banks. Iris's Open Banking feed covers perhaps half of those reliably. The other half — that's where the manual import pain lives. If you're manually formatting three statements a week for unsupported banks at 20 minutes each, that's 52 hours a year of unbillable CSV wrangling. Over a full working week lost to formatting headaches.

Step-by-Step: Importing Bank Statements into Iris

Right, let's walk through the actual process — from receiving the client's statement to seeing clean, reconciled transactions in Iris. Follow these steps in order and you'll avoid the most common headaches.

Get the Bank Statement in Digital Form

Log in to your client's online banking (or request the statement from them). Navigate to the relevant account and statement period. Look for an "Export" or "Download" option:

If CSV is available: Download CSV — this skips the conversion step. Even if the CSV needs some cleanup, it's faster than starting from PDF.
If only PDF is available: Download the PDF — you'll convert it to CSV in Step 2. This is common for HSBC Business, Nationwide Business, Virgin Money, building societies, and most business accounts.
If you have a scanned paper statement: You need OCR (optical character recognition) to extract data. Standard copy-paste will not work because there is no selectable text.

Practice tip: For recurring clients, request read-only access to their online banking. It eliminates the monthly email chase for statements and keeps you GDPR-compliant with direct, auditable access.

Convert PDF Statements to CSV (If Needed)

Iris does not accept PDF bank statements directly. If your client's bank only provided a PDF, you must convert it to CSV before importing. Your options:

Manual copy-paste: Open the PDF, select the transaction table, paste into Excel, fix misaligned columns, merge multi-line descriptions, fill in missing dates, save as CSV. Realistic time: 20-45 minutes per statement. Realistic for short statements only.
Adobe Acrobat export: Export PDF to Excel, then save as CSV. Gets you about 70% of the way but multi-line descriptions still split across rows and dates often get mangled. Cleanup still needed.
BankScan AI: Upload any UK bank PDF and download an Iris-ready CSV in under 30 seconds. Trained on 16+ UK bank formats — handles multi-line descriptions, grouped dates, OCR for scanned statements, and all the formatting quirks automatically. Free first conversion.

Format the CSV for Iris

This is the step that separates a clean import from a failed one. Iris expects a flat CSV file with these characteristics:

Date: DD/MM/YYYY format (e.g. 15/03/2026). Iris is strict about UK date format — US dates (MM/DD/YYYY) and ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD) will be rejected or misread. Dots as separators (15.03.2026) may also cause problems.
Description: One line per transaction. Multi-line descriptions must be merged. No line breaks within a single transaction's description field.
Money In: Credits as positive numbers. No £ sign, no comma separators, no trailing text. Write 1250.00, not £1,250.00 or "1250.00 CR".
Money Out: Debits as positive numbers. No £ sign, no commas. Write 45.99, not -45.99, £45.99, or "45.99 DR". Iris determines debits vs credits by the column you map to, not by a sign.
Balance (optional): Running balance after each transaction. If included, ensure it's a plain number — Iris will map this separately from transaction amounts.

Save as CSV UTF-8 (not CSV Macintosh or CSV MS-DOS). Verify there are no empty rows, no merged cells, and the header row appears exactly once at the top of the file.

Time check: Manual formatting of a 100-transaction CSV takes about 15-25 minutes. With BankScan AI, the formatting is automatic — under 30 seconds for any UK bank format.

Import the CSV into Iris

In Iris, navigate to the bank transactions screen for the relevant client. Find the import option — the exact path depends on your Iris module (Accounts Production, Business Tax, or Practice Management), but look for "Import Bank Statement" or "Import Transactions."

The Iris import wizard will prompt you to:

Select the bank account: Choose the correct client bank account from the dropdown — verify the account number and sort code match.
Upload the CSV: Browse to your formatted CSV file.
Map columns: Iris will show your CSV columns and ask you to map each one to the correct Iris field (Date, Description, Money In, Money Out, Balance). Check this screen carefully — it's your last chance to spot formatting problems before the import runs.

Critical: Iris shows a preview of the first few rows before finalising the import. Read every value in the preview. If a date shows as an error, if amounts look wrong, or if descriptions are truncated — cancel and fix your CSV. Undoing a bad import is significantly harder than catching it at the preview stage.

Verify the Imported Transactions

After the import completes, Iris displays the imported transactions. Do a quick but thorough sanity check before you move on to reconciliation:

Totals match: Sum the imported debits and credits and compare against the statement's opening and closing balance difference. If they don't reconcile, something went wrong in the import or formatting.
Spot-check dates and amounts: Pick 3-5 random transactions and compare them against the original bank statement. Verify the date, description, and amount match exactly.
Check for duplicates: Iris may flag transactions it believes were already imported. Review these carefully — genuine duplicates should be removed, but false positives (legitimate new transactions with similar references) need to be allowed through.
Final balance: If your CSV included a running balance column, the last row's balance should match the statement's closing balance.

Spending two minutes on this verification now saves you from untangling a reconciliation disaster at month-end when the trial balance doesn't balance and you cannot trace the error.

Common Iris Import Errors — and How to Fix Them

Iris import errors can be frustrating because the error messages are sometimes generic. Here are the problems Iris users hit most often, with the specific fix for each.

❌ "Date format not recognised"

Iris expects DD/MM/YYYY. If your CSV contains dates in any other format — especially US format (MM/DD/YYYY), ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD), or text-format dates like "15 March 2026" — the import will either reject the file or import dates incorrectly (swapping month and day silently).

✅ Fix: In Excel, select the date column. Go to Format Cells > Custom > Type: dd/mm/yyyy. Verify that dates like 03/05/2026 are read as 3rd May (not 5th March). If dates are stored as text, use =DATEVALUE() to convert before reformatting. Save as CSV UTF-8.

❌ "Column mapping mismatch — unexpected fields"

During the Iris column mapping step, if your CSV has extra columns it doesn't expect, or if your column labels don't clearly indicate what the data represents, Iris may fail to auto-detect the mapping and require manual intervention — or reject the file entirely.

✅ Fix: Strip your CSV down to the essential columns only: Date, Description, Money In, Money Out, and optionally Balance. Remove any extra columns like transaction type codes, branch references, or cheque numbers that the bank's CSV export included. Keep the header row clean and descriptive.

❌ "Duplicate transaction detected"

Iris checks imported transactions against the existing transaction history by comparing date, amount, and description. If you're re-importing a corrected CSV after a failed first attempt, Iris may flag previously imported transactions as duplicates and block them.

✅ Fix: Before re-importing, undo or delete the previous import from Iris's bank screen. If the previous import was partially successful, you may need to remove those transactions manually before re-importing the corrected file. For genuinely similar transactions (e.g. two payments of the same amount on consecutive days), Iris should handle them fine — duplicate detection uses a combination of fields.

❌ "Amounts not recognised — check numeric format"

If your CSV's amount columns contain £ signs, comma separators (£1,250.00), trailing text ("1250.00 CR"), or inconsistent decimal places, Iris may treat the values as text rather than numbers — or misread them entirely.

✅ Fix: In Excel, use Find & Replace (Ctrl+H) to remove all £ signs and commas from the amount columns. Ensure all values use two decimal places consistently. Verify Money In and Money Out columns contain positive numbers only — Iris handles debit/credit classification by column, not by sign. Save as CSV and re-import.

❌ "Transactions split across multiple rows"

When a bank statement has multi-line transaction descriptions, each line becomes a separate row in the CSV. Iris sees rows without dates or amounts as malformed transactions and either rejects them or imports them as errors. This is the single most time-consuming issue when converting PDFs manually.

✅ Fix: In Excel, identify rows that are description continuations (they lack a date or amount), then use TEXTJOIN or CONCATENATE to merge them into the previous row's description field. Delete the now-empty continuation rows. For long statements, this is the biggest timesink — BankScan AI merges multi-line descriptions automatically for all 16+ UK bank formats.

Iris vs Other Accounting Software: Bank Statement Imports Compared

If your practice uses multiple software platforms — or if you're evaluating Iris alongside other options — it's helpful to see how Iris's bank import capabilities stack up. Here's an honest comparison:

Feature	Iris	Xero	QuickBooks	Sage	FreeAgent	KashFlow
Open Banking feed	✅ Yes (major banks)	✅ Yes (broad coverage)	✅ Yes (broad coverage)	✅ Yes (via bank feeds)	✅ Yes (via Open Banking)	✅ Yes (via Yodlee)
Building society feed support	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited
Challenger bank feed support	⚠️ Intermittent	✅ Good	✅ Good	⚠️ Intermittent	✅ Good	⚠️ Intermittent
CSV import flexibility	🟠 Strict format	🟢 Flexible	🟢 Flexible	🟠 Moderate	🟢 Flexible	🟠 Moderate
PDF import supported	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Date format accepted	DD/MM/YYYY only	DD/MM/YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD	DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY	DD/MM/YYYY (varies)	DD/MM/YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD	DD/MM/YYYY only
Multi-currency import	✅ Yes (care needed)	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited
Bulk import (merge multiple CSVs)	❌ No	❌ No	⚠️ Via apps	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
API for bank transactions	⚠️ Limited	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited
Manual effort for unsupported banks	🔴 High	🟠 Moderate	🟠 Moderate	🔴 High	🟢 Low (via CSV)	🟠 Moderate

The pattern is clear: no accounting platform accepts PDFs directly, and every platform's bank feed has gaps. Iris's import is functional but strict — more prescriptive about formatting than Xero or FreeAgent, which means a higher proportion of your time goes to CSV cleanup before import. The fix isn't switching platforms; it's having a reliable way to produce Iris-compatible CSVs from any bank's statement format.

Automating Iris Bank Statement Imports with BankScan AI

By this point, you've probably noticed a recurring theme: manual CSV formatting is the bottleneck. Every bank formats its statements differently. Every CSV export has its own quirks. And every time you sit down to import statements into Iris, you spend more time cleaning data than actually doing bookkeeping.

BankScan AI was built to eliminate that bottleneck for UK accountants and bookkeepers. Here's how it works specifically for Iris users:

How It Works

Upload any bank statement: Drag and drop PDFs, CSVs, or scanned paper statements from any UK bank. BankScan AI has been trained on the statement layouts of 16+ UK banks — including the trickiest ones like HSBC Business, Nationwide, and building society formats.
Automatic formatting: The AI detects the bank, identifies the statement layout, merges multi-line descriptions, fills in grouped dates, separates debits/credits from running balances, and applies Iris-compatible formatting — all in under 30 seconds.
Download Iris-ready CSV: Export as CSV formatted exactly as Iris expects: DD/MM/YYYY dates, clean single-line descriptions, positive-only amount columns with no currency symbols, and consistent decimal formatting.
Batch processing: Upload statements for multiple clients or multiple months in one go. BankScan AI processes everything in parallel and returns individually formatted CSVs — no file merging required.

Why It Matters for Iris Users

What BankScan AI Does

Outputs CSV formatted to Iris's exact requirements — DD/MM/YYYY dates, clean descriptions, positive-only amounts
Handles all 16+ UK bank formats from one upload screen
Colour-coded confidence indicators on every extracted transaction — green (high confidence), amber (review suggested), red (needs checking)
Merges multi-line descriptions into single rows — the number one time-saver for PDF statements
Batch processing — multiple clients, multiple banks, one upload session
GDPR-compliant — UK-based infrastructure, encrypted in transit and at rest, no data stored after processing
Free first conversion — no credit card needed

What It Does Not Do

Direct API integration with Iris (Iris's API does not support programmatic bank transaction injection)
Automatic reconciliation — you still review and categorise transactions in Iris
Replace the Iris Open Banking feed — where the feed works, keep using it

For a practice with 30 Iris clients, the time maths is straightforward: if you spend 20 minutes manually formatting each statement for unsupported banks, and you process 10 such statements a month, that's over three hours monthly — 40 hours a year — spent on CSV formatting alone. With BankScan AI's 30-second processing, the same workload takes five minutes. The rest of that time goes back to billable work.

Stop Formatting CSVs for Iris. Start Reconciling.

Upload any UK bank statement — PDF or CSV, from any bank — and get an Iris-ready CSV in under 30 seconds. Handles all 16+ UK bank formats, multi-line descriptions, grouped dates, and column mapping automatically. Free first conversion, no credit card needed.

Try BankScan AI Free →

Practical Checklist: From Client PDF to Reconciled Iris Transactions

⬜ Before You Start

Confirm the client's bank account is set up in Iris with correct sort code and account number
Verify the statement period — note the opening and closing balance from the bank statement
Check whether this bank is supported by Iris's Open Banking feed (if yes, set up the feed first for ongoing transactions)
Download all statements as PDF or CSV from the client's online banking (or request from client)

⬜ Processing the Statement

If CSV: open in Excel and check for multi-line rows, date format, and currency symbols
If PDF: convert to CSV using BankScan AI (under 30 seconds) or manual method
If scanned paper: use BankScan AI's OCR to extract transactions (manual copy-paste won't work)
Verify date format is DD/MM/YYYY throughout
Verify amount columns contain plain numbers only — no £, no commas, no trailing text
Verify one row per transaction — merge any multi-line descriptions into single rows
Save as CSV UTF-8

⬜ Importing into Iris

Open Iris and navigate to the client's bank transactions screen
Select "Import Bank Statement" and choose your CSV file
Map CSV columns to Iris fields (Date, Description, Money In, Money Out, Balance)
Review the import preview — check dates and amounts from the first few rows
Complete the import

⬜ Post-Import Verification

Sum imported debits and credits — reconcile to the statement's opening/closing balance difference
Spot-check 3-5 transactions against the original bank statement
Review any duplicate detection flags — accept genuine new transactions, remove true duplicates
Verify the final running balance matches the statement's closing balance (if balance column was imported)
Begin transaction categorisation and reconciliation in Iris

Golden rule for Iris imports: Never delete the original bank statement PDF after import. Keep it filed in your practice management system alongside the Iris data. If HMRC ever queries a transaction, you need the source document — not just the imported data. BankScan AI does not store your data, so your PDF remains your single source of truth.

Formatting Bank Statements from Specific UK Banks for Iris

Different UK banks produce statements with different quirks. Here's a quick reference for the most common banks your Iris clients will use, and what to watch for when preparing their statements for Iris import:

Bank	CSV Export?	Date Format	Key Issue for Iris Import	Readiness
Barclays	✅ Personal & Business	DD/MM/YYYY	Multi-line descriptions in business statements	🟠 Needs formatting
HSBC	⚠️ Personal only; Business = PDF	DD/MM/YYYY	Grouped dates, multi-line descriptions, embedded balance	🔴 Requires conversion
Lloyds	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Extra header rows in some exports	🟠 Needs formatting
NatWest	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Column order varies by account type	🟠 Needs formatting
Santander	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Semicolon separators on some accounts	🟠 Needs formatting
Nationwide	⚠️ Personal only; Business = PDF	DD/MM/YYYY	No CSV for business — PDF conversion required	🔴 Requires conversion
Metro Bank	✅ Yes	Sometimes US format	Date format inconsistency — always check before importing	🔴 Check dates
Monzo Business	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Limited Iris feed; manual CSV import needed	🟠 Needs formatting
Starling Bank	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Feed may work; CSV is reliable fallback	🟢 Generally clean
Revolut Business	✅ Yes	DD/MM/YYYY	Multi-currency columns — Iris needs GBP-only or careful mapping	🟠 Needs formatting

🔴 Red — Needs Conversion

PDF-only banks (HSBC Business, Nationwide Business, building societies). No CSV export available. Must convert PDF to CSV before Iris import.

🟠 Amber — Needs Formatting

CSV available but needs cleanup: date format fixes, multi-line description merging, extra header removal, or column reordering for Iris compatibility.

🟢 Green — Direct Import

Clean CSV or working Iris bank feed. Upload and go — minimal or no manual formatting required before Iris import.

The diversity of bank formats is exactly why a universal converter matters. A practice with 30 Iris clients typically deals with 8-12 different banks. Remembering the formatting requirements for each one — and doing it manually every month — is where the hours vanish. BankScan AI handles all of these formats in one tool, so you upload whatever the client sends and get back an Iris-ready CSV every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Iris accounting software support automatic bank feeds?

Yes — Iris supports automatic bank feeds via Open Banking for many UK high-street banks including Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, NatWest, Santander, and TSB. However, coverage is not universal. Building societies including Nationwide often lack feed support, challenger banks like Monzo and Starling have limited business account connectivity, and some business accounts restrict feed access entirely. When the bank feed does not cover a specific bank — or when the 90-day re-authorisation expires and the feed goes silent — manual CSV import is the required fallback. For practices with clients across multiple banks, we recommend maintaining a reliable CSV conversion workflow as backup even when feeds are active.

What CSV format does Iris require for bank statement imports?

Iris expects a clean, flat CSV with Date (DD/MM/YYYY format), Description (single line per transaction, no wrapping), Money In (positive credits, no £ symbol, no commas), Money Out (positive debits, no £ symbol, no commas), and optionally Balance. Iris is stricter than some platforms about date format — DD/MM/YYYY only, no ISO or US variants. Amount columns must contain plain numbers with decimal points. Multi-line descriptions are the most common cause of rejection — each transaction must occupy exactly one row. BankScan AI auto-formats any UK bank statement to this exact structure, with DD/MM/YYYY dates, merged descriptions, and clean amount columns, in under 30 seconds.

Why is my Iris bank statement CSV import failing?

The five most common causes: (1) Date format mismatch — Iris requires DD/MM/YYYY; US-format and ISO-format dates cause rejection or silent misreading. (2) Multi-line descriptions — transactions spanning multiple CSV rows break the one-row-per-transaction structure. (3) Currency symbols and commas — £ signs and comma separators in amount columns cause Iris to treat values as text. (4) Column mapping errors — extra or unexpected columns confuse Iris's auto-detection. (5) Duplicate detection — Iris flags transactions it believes are already imported, which can block legitimate new entries. Check each of these before retrying the import.

How do I import PDF bank statements into Iris accounting software?

Iris does not accept PDF bank statements directly. You must convert PDFs to CSV first. This is the biggest workflow bottleneck for Iris users — many UK business accounts (HSBC, Nationwide, building societies) only provide PDF statements. Manual copy-paste from PDF is slow and error-prone. Adobe Acrobat export gets you about 70% of the way but still leaves multi-line description splits and date formatting issues. The fastest method: BankScan AI converts any UK bank PDF to Iris-ready CSV in under 30 seconds, handling multi-line descriptions, grouped dates, OCR for scanned statements, and column mapping automatically. Try it free — no credit card needed.

Does Iris integrate with all UK banks?

Iris integrates with most major UK high-street banks through Open Banking: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, TSB, Bank of Scotland, Halifax, RBS, and Ulster Bank. Notable gaps include: Nationwide (limited or no feed for business accounts), Metro Bank (intermittent support), Monzo and Starling (limited business account feed), Virgin Money (inconsistent), and most building societies. For these unsupported banks, manual CSV import is the standard workflow. If you manage Iris clients across multiple banks, a universal converter like BankScan AI eliminates the per-bank formatting problem — one tool handles all 16+ UK bank formats with consistent output.

Can I bulk import multiple bank statements into Iris at once?

Iris does not natively support merging multiple statement files into a single import. Your options: (1) Combine all statements into one CSV with one header row, sorted by date — faster but riskier, as one error voids the entire import. (2) Import each CSV individually — slower but provides a cleaner audit trail. (3) Use BankScan AI's batch processing to convert all statements to Iris-ready CSVs at once, then import individually. For new client onboarding with 6-12 months of historical statements across multiple bank accounts, batch conversion reduces hours of manual formatting to minutes. BankScan AI's batch upload handles unlimited statements in one session.

How do I handle multi-currency bank statements in Iris?

Iris supports multi-currency accounting, but bank statement imports in foreign currencies require extra attention: (1) Ensure CSV amount columns use the correct decimal separator — US dollars and euros use a full stop, but some European CSV exports use commas. (2) Map the currency code if your CSV includes one — Iris needs to know the currency to apply exchange rates correctly. (3) Exchange rates — Iris applies the rate configured for the client's books, which may differ from the statement's transaction-date rate. Verify the GBP equivalent against your expectations before reconciling. For multi-currency accounts, BankScan AI preserves original currency values and produces CSVs with consistent decimal formatting compatible with Iris's multi-currency import.

What happens when my Iris Open Banking feed expires?

Open Banking regulations require re-authorisation every 90 days. When an Iris bank feed expires: (1) Iris displays a warning in the bank screen — but it's easy to miss if you're not checking daily. (2) Your client must log in to their online banking and re-authorise — you cannot do this on their behalf. (3) While the feed is down, use CSV import to bridge the gap. (4) After re-authorisation, the feed backfills missed transactions. Practice tip: set a recurring calendar reminder at 80 days for every client with active feeds, prompting them to re-authorise before the feed breaks. For clients who consistently miss the deadline, maintain a CSV import backup workflow using BankScan AI to ensure continuity.

Last updated: 11 July 2026. BankScan AI supports 16+ UK bank formats — read our UK bank statement formats guide or browse our complete import guides for Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, and KashFlow.

Import Bank Statements into Iris Accounting Software — Complete UK Guide (2026)