Converting PDF financials to Excel / Google Sheets

July 21, 2025

by a searcher from Harvard University - Harvard Business School in Seattle, WA, USA

Has anyone found a reliable app or AI prompt to convert PDF financials from a data room into a coherent set of excel-based financials? I'm annoyed by how many PDF docs I get and embarrassed to admit how much time I've spent trying to automate the translation. It is still much faster for me manually to re-create them... Thanks!

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Reply by a professional
from Stanford University in Los Angeles, CA, USA

^redacted‌ you can try the prompt below, I'm usually getting good results with it --- TASK: Convert the attached PDF financial statement for a single SMB into CSV files with audit‑level precision. GUIDELINES: 1. Scope of extraction. Capture only the tabular financial data (P&L line‑items, subtotals, and totals). Exclude all narrative commentary, footnotes, and analyst notes. even if embedded in the same page. 2. Layout fidelity. Reproduce every column exactly as shown in the PDF. Keep the original column headers, order, indentation levels, blank rows, section dividers, and number formatting (e.g., parentheses for negatives, thousands separators, decimal precision). No header renaming or re‑synchronization. 3. File segmentation. Output each distinct table as its own CSV, named sequentially like `P&L_table01.csv`, `P&L_table02.csv`, up to a hard cap of 10 files. If additional tables remain, stop processing and return a one‑line notice: More tables left. rerun to continue. Do not merge unrelated tables into the same file. 4. Csv formatting spec. UTF‑8 encoding, comma delimiter, double quotes around any text field containing commas, Windows line endings (`\r\n`). Preserve leading/trailing zeros and percentage signs exactly as displayed. 5. Accuracy requirements. No hallucination, interpolation, or automatic roll‑up. Every numeric cell must match the source pixel‑for‑pixel. If OCR confidence < 99 % in any cell, flag it with UNCERTAIN in a parallel `_quality_flag` column for that row and leave the numeric value blank. 6. Output style. Provide only plaintext CSV code blocks in your response, in the order generated. no descriptive paragraphs, markdown headings, or commentary outside the code blocks. 7. Validation cue. After processing, append a final check to help me verify integrity. Do not simplify or re‑interpret. Just do this and nothing else. Ask me 3 clarifying questions if needed.

Reply by a searcher
from Eastern Washington University in Seattle, WA, USA

I used to deal with this daily - Able2Extract has been my go-to for a few years now. $200 lifetime license, and accuracy is high. I use it mostly for converting P&Ls from PDF to Excel, it takes a little cleaning after conversion but not too bad.

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