Check a Bank Statement for Signs of Editing
Every statement you convert is checked for the traces editing leaves behind: balances that no longer add up, rows that repeat, amounts that are too round, and PDF metadata naming software a bank would never use. The checks run alongside the conversion, on your own machine, and take no longer than it does.
Runs on every conversion · nothing uploaded
How the check works
Convert the statement as normal; the integrity checks run on the extracted rows and the PDF’s own metadata
Read the result: clean, worth reviewing, or flagged, with the specific finding behind it
Follow up on what it points at, because a finding is a reason to look, not a verdict
What is actually checked
- Balance reconciliation: the opening balance plus every transaction should land exactly on the closing balance. A gap means rows were added, removed or altered.
- Repeated rows: three or more transactions identical in date, description and amount, which is how padding usually looks.
- Round-number clustering: more than 80% of amounts landing on whole units, across at least twelve transactions. Real spending is rarely that tidy.
- Editing software: PDF metadata naming Photoshop, Canva, Word, iLovePDF, Smallpdf and others no bank produces statements with.
- Modification date: a file modified more than a minute after it was created, when a bank writes a statement once.
What a flag does and does not mean
None of these findings is proof of fraud on its own. A statement can fail balance reconciliation because a page did not parse cleanly. Metadata can name a PDF tool because someone combined two statements into one file for convenience, not to deceive. The checks exist to tell you which document is worth ten minutes of attention, not to make the decision for you.
That is also why every finding says what triggered it rather than showing a score. A gap of £240.00 in the running balance, or a producer field reading "Canva", is something you can go and check against the account. A number between one and a hundred is not.
Statement verification questions
Does this prove a statement is genuine?
No, and nothing that reads a PDF can. These are heuristics: they catch the traces careless editing leaves behind, and a document that passes all five has simply not tripped any of them. For a decision that matters, the statement should still be confirmed against the account, usually through open banking or directly with the bank.
Is the statement uploaded for checking?
No. The checks run in your browser on data already extracted there, plus the PDF’s own metadata. Nothing about the document is sent anywhere, which is the point for a lender or a law firm handling someone else’s financial records.
What does a balance mismatch usually mean?
Most often that a page failed to parse rather than that anything was altered, particularly with scanned statements. The report shows the size of the gap, so you can tell a missing page from a single edited row.
Why does editing software show as a serious finding?
Because a bank writes statements with reporting software, never with Photoshop or Canva. That does not always mean deception, since people do merge or annotate PDFs, but it does mean the file you are looking at is not the one the bank produced.
Does it cost anything?
The checks run on every conversion, including on the free tier. There is no separate verification product to buy.