universal importer.md
Universal Importer
When to use the Universal Importer
- Your client's bank is not supported by Plaid (e.g., local credit unions)
- You need historical data beyond what Plaid provides for an existing connected account
- You're doing catch-up bookkeeping with statements from closed accounts
- You only have paper statements that have been scanned
Important: The Universal Importer is available on all paid plans. If you are on the free plan, upgrade to access this feature.
Supported file types
- PDF, including scanned PDFs
- CSV
Import transactions
- Go to the Accounts tab
- Click Add account and select Import transactions
- Drag and drop your files, browse from your computer, or select from the Documents tab. You can upload PDFs and CSVs for multiple accounts at once.
- Kick extracts account information, balances, and transactions automatically. Review the extracted data before importing.
- Select the entity and either create a new account or map to an existing one. If you're backfilling history for a connected account, select that account here.
- Click Import to create the transactions.
When you upload files for multiple accounts in a single batch, Kick automatically detects which account each file belongs to and sorts them accordingly.
Extraction and import may take a few minutes depending on the number of files and transactions. You can navigate away and come back — the import will continue processing.
Review extracted data
After uploading, Kick presents the extraction in a side-by-side view — a preview of the source document on the left and the extracted transactions in an editable table on the right. You can modify:
- Dates — Adjust transaction dates if the extraction parsed them incorrectly
- Descriptions — Edit or clean up transaction descriptions
- Cash in / Cash out — Correct amounts in either column
- Opening and closing balances — Edit the extracted balance figures for the statement period
The table includes built-in arithmetic validation: opening balance + cash in − cash out = closing balance. If the totals don't align, Kick flags the discrepancy so you can correct it before importing.