Guides · Lloyds

Lloyds splits money in and money out into two columns.

Most exports use one signed column and let a minus sign carry the meaning. Lloyds does not: Debit Amount and Credit Amount are separate fields, and only one of them is ever filled.

lloyds-statement.csv
5 columns
Recognised · Lloyds
Transaction Date Transaction Description Debit Amount Credit Amount Balance
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The file

Transaction Date, Transaction Description, Debit Amount, Credit Amount, Balance.

Two columns, not one signed figure

Debit Amount and Credit Amount. Direction is structural rather than a minus sign, which removes the single most common import error before it can happen.

A row with neither is skipped

If both columns are empty the row carries no money and is not imported, so heading and summary rows do not become £0.00 transactions.

Balance is read when present

A running balance on each row makes checking a closing figure straightforward.

Transaction Date, spelled out

Not just “Date”. Along with the two amount columns it is how a Lloyds file is recognised.

Why this shape is safer

The sign error cannot happen here.

On a single signed column, reading the convention backwards turns every expense in the year into income. The books still balance, because debits and credits are equal and opposite either way, so nothing downstream notices, and the trial balance describes a business that made money it never made. With separate Debit and Credit columns there is no sign to misread: the column a figure sits in is the direction. It is the one format where that whole class of error is designed out rather than guarded against.

FAQ

Lloyds exports, in practice.

Which column means money out?

Debit Amount. Credit Amount is money in. Only one is populated on any given row.

What if both columns have a figure?

That is not a shape Lloyds produces. A row is read as a debit when the debit column carries a value, otherwise as a credit.

Does Halifax or Bank of Scotland export the same way?

They are Lloyds-family shapes and read cleanly by column name. Halifax uses Debit / Credit. They import today without a dedicated parser.

Is the description usable for rules?

Yes. Transaction Description is the field rules match against, and it is a single consistent column rather than being split across payee and memo.

Are the dates UK order?

Yes. 05/01/2025 is 5 January.

More formats

What the other exports look like.

Barclays Date, Description, Amount, Memo.

One signed amount column, so the sign is the only thing separating a payment from a receipt. Plus what the Memo column is worth keeping for.

Read the format Starling Counter Party, and why it matters for rules.

One of the cleaner UK exports: a signed amount, a running balance on every row, and a counterparty name that is actually the counterparty.

Read the format All formats Every UK export, and the three things that go wrong.

Signs, date order and currency: the three mistakes that give you books that balance but describe the wrong business.

Back to the guides

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