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Knowledge base

Financial glossary

Plain-English explanations of common statement formats, exports, and accounting terms.

Format
MT940

MT940 (SWIFT message type 940) is an electronic statement format used to transmit account transaction data. It was the long-standing standard for bank-to-company data exchange, but is increasingly replaced by the ISO 20022 XML format CAMT.053.

Why it mattersSome accounting tools still rely on MT940-style exports. KontoCSV turns statement PDFs into structured CSV/Excel data that you can further process or import.
Format
CAMT.053

CAMT.053 is the ISO 20022 standard for electronic account statements in XML format. It is the successor to MT940 in the SEPA area and provides more detail and a cleaner structure.

Why it mattersModern accounting software prefers CAMT.053 because it enables more automation and more consistent imports.
File type
CSV

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a simple text format for table data. Rows are separated by line breaks and columns by a delimiter (often comma or semicolon).

Why it mattersCSV is one of the most widely supported import formats. KontoCSV is specialized in converting bank statement PDFs into clean CSV exports.
Accounting
DATEV format

A specific import template defined by DATEV eG for exchanging accounting data. It typically requires specific columns (amount, debit/credit sign, booking text, etc.) and consistent formatting.

Why it mattersImportant if you work with a tax advisor. KontoCSV includes a DATEV export profile that matches common import expectations.
Technology
OCR

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that recognizes text in images or scanned documents and converts it into machine-readable text.

Why it mattersKontoCSV uses OCR + AI to extract transactions from scanned PDFs and photos of bank statements.
Banking
S-Finanzstatus

A specific PDF layout used by the Sparkassen group to summarize financial status and transactions.

Why it mattersKontoCSV is trained to recognize common Sparkasse layouts and can handle S-Finanzstatus documents.

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