Invoice to Excel, without retyping the file
Most converters give you a CSV and call it done. If you live in Excel, that means re-importing, re-formatting and losing the column widths every time. Here is how to get something you can actually work in.
What Excel needs that CSV cannot give you
CSV carries no types and no formatting. Dates arrive as text, totals arrive as text, and a supplier called 3M becomes a scientific-notation headline in the wrong hands. An .xlsx file keeps the columns you set, the number format and the sheet name — which is why people ask for Excel rather than CSV even when the data is identical.
The columns worth keeping
For invoices, five columns cover almost everything: supplier, invoice number, date, net, VAT. Add gross if your accountant asks for it (many do, because gross is what left the bank). Invoice number matters more than people think: it is the only reliable de-duplication key when the same invoice arrives twice.
Number formats that survive the trip
Export amounts as numbers, not strings. If your converter writes '1,234.56' with the comma, Excel may treat the whole column as text and your SUM will silently return zero. The fix is to store the raw number and let Excel format it — which is what a proper .xlsx export does.
When the invoice is a scan
If the PDF has a text layer, extraction is exact. If it is a photograph, OCR reads it and will occasionally misread 8 as 3 or 1 as 7. Always sort by amount and eyeball the outliers before you close the file.
Common questions
Will Excel open a CSV with the right columns?
It opens, but every column is text and dates may flip between day-first and month-first depending on your locale. XLSX avoids both problems.
Should I keep the invoice number?
Yes. It is the only field that reliably prevents paying the same invoice twice.
What about multi-currency invoices?
Keep a currency column. Mixing currencies in one total column is the single most common bookkeeping error we see.