Rent Manager Bank Reconciliation and Bank Sync, PDF Bank Statements to CSV for Electronic Reconcile

Can Rent Manager import a PDF bank statement?

No. Rent Manager Electronic Reconcile imports a bank statement only as a QIF or CSV file, and it reads the CSV using the column layout you set once under Admin, System Preferences, Bank Reconciliation. A PDF statement, the kind a bank emails or an owner forwards, has to become a CSV first. BankXLSX converts the PDF into a spreadsheet with one row per transaction, and you save it as the CSV Electronic Reconcile expects.

That gap matters more for property managers than for most businesses. A mid-size management company can run dozens of operating, trust and security deposit accounts, spread across several banks. Some of those banks offer a clean CSV download, some only offer a download for the last 90 days, and some accounts are owner-held, where the manager never has online access and only sees the PDF the owner sends each month. Every one of those PDFs is a manual reconciliation unless it is converted.

Electronic Reconcile, Bank Sync or manual, which one fits your accounts?

Rent Manager gives you three ways to clear a bank register. Manual reconciliation under Accounting, Bank Reconcile has you tick every cleared payment and deposit against the paper or PDF statement. Electronic Reconcile imports the statement as a file and pre-checks the matches. Bank Sync, which Rent Manager launched for its web-based Rent Manager Express in September 2023, connects the bank through Plaid and brings the transactions in automatically, but only for institutions Plaid supports.

Electronic Reconcile is the practical middle ground for most portfolios. It works with every bank, it does not depend on a login someone has to keep alive, and once the CSV layout is saved in System Preferences it takes a minute per account. The only missing piece is the file itself when the bank hands you a PDF, which is the step the converter covers.

How do I set up the CSV bank statement import in Rent Manager?

Go to Admin, then System Preferences, then Bank Reconciliation. These settings tell Rent Manager how to read every CSV you import, so set them once to match the converted file and you will not touch them again. You need the System Preferences view and edit privileges to change them.

Two settings cause most bad imports. The first is the sign. Rent Manager flips the meaning of positive and negative depending on the Debits checks positive box, so a file with deposits positive must be imported with that box unchecked, or every deposit lands as a check. The second is the date format. Open the CSV in a text editor, not Excel, and look at the first date exactly as it is stored. If it reads 03/05/2026, enter MM/DD/YYYY. If Excel has rewritten it on save, set the Date column to a fixed custom format before saving the CSV again.

How do I do an electronic bank reconciliation in Rent Manager?

Go to Accounting, then Electronic Reconcile, and select the bank. Rent Manager lists every uncleared payment and deposit for that bank on one side. Click Import Trans, browse to the CSV and click Open. The imported bank lines appear on the other side, and every line Rent Manager can match is already checked.

Rent Manager matches payments and deposits on amount and the closest date. The date on the Rent Manager transaction has to be on or before the date on the bank line for the automatic match to work, which is why a rent deposit recorded after it cleared the bank will not match on its own. When several transactions share an amount, the reference (the check number) decides. Anything left unmatched you match by hand, by ticking the items in both lists. If one bank deposit was recorded in Rent Manager as two receipts, Rent Manager will not pair them automatically, so tick both receipts against the one bank line.

Click Save and Continue when the lists are matched. Rent Manager closes the import window and opens the Reconcile window with those transactions already checked. Enter the statement ending balance as the goal, add bank fees in the Service Charges grid and interest in the Interest grid, each against a property and GL account, and finish when the Difference reads zero. Click Print for the report of cleared and uncleared items, then Save.

One rule catches people the first month. If you import a file and then need to import a different one for the same reconciliation, Rent Manager requires you to roll back the earlier import through Posting Rollback first. Check the converted file before you import it: confirm the opening balance plus deposits minus payments equals the ending balance on the statement, and confirm the row count matches the number of transactions on the PDF.

Why won’t my Rent Manager electronic reconciliation match?

Almost always it is one of four things. The sign is reversed, so every deposit sits on the payments side; fix Debits checks positive. The date format is wrong, so every date is read as a different day or rejected; fix Date Format. The Rent Manager transaction is dated after the bank line, which blocks the automatic match; match it by hand or correct the date. Or the bank line is a single deposit covering several receipts, which never matches automatically. A converted file keeps the statement running balance beside each row, so when the Difference will not reach zero you can find the day the balances split in a minute rather than an hour.

Which Rent Manager accounts end up reconciled from PDFs?

In practice four kinds. Owner-held operating accounts, where the owner banks locally and forwards the PDF statement at month end. Security deposit and trust or escrow accounts at banks whose online portal offers a PDF but no CSV, or only the last 90 days of activity. Accounts from a portfolio you just took over, where the prior manager hands over a year of PDF statements and you need the history reconciled in Rent Manager before you close your first month. And association or commercial accounts at small banks and credit unions that Plaid does not connect.

Trust and security deposit accounts are the ones auditors and state regulators look at. Many states require property managers who hold tenant deposits or owner funds to reconcile those trust accounts monthly and keep the records. Reconciling them from a converted CSV rather than by eye makes the monthly close faster and leaves a clean Rent Manager reconciliation report for each account.

How much does Rent Manager cost?

Rent Manager now sells three bundles, Basic, Plus and Premium, on a quote basis through its Compare Bundles page. The last per-unit prices it published, captured in January 2025, were Basic at $1.00 per unit per month with a $200 monthly minimum, Plus at $1.75 with a $350 minimum, and Premium at $2.50 with a $500 minimum, each with unlimited users and an implementation package priced at twice the monthly fee. Several review sites still quote the older $1.50 Plus price. For the full breakdown by portfolio size, read our Rent Manager pricing guide.

Against that, statement conversion is a small line. BankXLSX Starter is $49 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly, for 2,500 pages with unlimited users. A management company reconciling 60 accounts with three page statements uses about 180 pages a month. Plus adds bulk upload of up to 50 statements at once, the plan to pick when a new portfolio arrives with a year of history. Plans are on the pricing page.

Taking over a portfolio with a year of PDF statements

This is the heaviest week the converter saves. A new management agreement starts, and the owner or the previous manager sends twelve months of statements for the operating and deposit accounts. You want the history in Rent Manager so the owner statement and the year-end 1099 and Schedule E numbers come from one system.

The routine that works: record opening balances as of the takeover date, convert all the PDFs in one batch conversion, enter or import the transactions for each month, and run Electronic Reconcile month by month in order. Reconciling in sequence catches a missing page or a duplicated deposit while it is still one month of activity to search. Our bank statement converter for property managers covers the owner statement side of the same work.

If your company runs more than one system, the routine is the same elsewhere. Our Buildium bank statement converter, AppFolio bank statement converter and Yardi bank reconciliation pages map the converted file to each import screen.