If you bank with HSBC for your sole trader account and you've recently tried to download your transactions as a CSV or Excel file, you may have noticed something's changed. What used to be a straightforward export is now significantly more difficult — and for sole traders preparing for Making Tax Digital, that's a real problem.

This post explains what happened, why it matters for your MTD records, and what your options are.

What changed with HSBC statement downloads?

HSBC has made it increasingly difficult for business customers — particularly those on Kinetic accounts, which is HSBC's sole trader and small business account — to export transactions in a usable format.

Previously, you could download a CSV or OFX file of your transactions directly from online banking. That file could then be opened in Excel, categorised, and used as the basis for your tax records.

That functionality has been effectively removed or buried for many account holders. What you're left with is PDF statements — which look fine on screen but are essentially useless for digital record-keeping without additional tools to extract the data.

To download 12 months of historical statements individually through the current HSBC interface can take well over 380 clicks across multiple sessions. That's not a typo.

Why this matters for Making Tax Digital

Under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you're required to keep digital records of every transaction — not just annual totals. Each income payment and business expense needs to be recorded separately, with dates and amounts, and categorised into HMRC's approved expense categories.

If you bank with HSBC and your only export option is a PDF, you're facing one of three choices:

  1. Type out every transaction manually from the PDF into a spreadsheet — time-consuming and error-prone
  2. Use a generic PDF-to-Excel converter — which extracts raw numbers but gives you zero HMRC categorisation, leaving you to do all the work anyway
  3. Switch banks — which means changing your business account, direct debits, payment details with clients, and more

None of these are good options. Option 1 is impractical at scale. Option 2 gets you halfway there at best. Option 3 is a major disruption for something that should be simple.

Most PDF converters will pull your transactions into a spreadsheet, but won't tell you which are Motor expenses, which are Professional fees, or which are personal spend that shouldn't be in your records at all. That categorisation is the part HMRC actually cares about.

Get MTD-ready without typing out a single transaction

MTDPrep turns your HSBC PDF statement into HMRC-categorised records, ready for your bridging software. Join the waitlist and get three months free when we launch.

No card required. No spam.

What MTDPrep does differently

MTDPrep is built specifically for this problem. Here's how it works:

Step 1 — Upload your HSBC PDF statement. No need to download CSV files or fight with online banking. Just download your PDF statement (which HSBC still makes available) and upload it directly to MTDPrep.

Step 2 — Every transaction gets categorised. MTDPrep reads each transaction and assigns it to the correct HMRC expense category — Motor, Office, Professional Fees, Repairs, and so on. Income is separated from expenses automatically.

Step 3 — Review and correct. You see every transaction and its suggested category. Anything that isn't right, you can correct in a click.

Step 4 — Export MTD-ready records. Download a spreadsheet formatted for direct use with HMRC-recognised bridging software, including 123 Sheets, Absolute Excel, and VT. Your records are ready to submit.

The whole process takes minutes, not hours.

Do I need to switch banks?

No — and you shouldn't have to. Switching your business bank account is a significant undertaking and creates unnecessary disruption just to solve a data export problem.

MTDPrep is designed to work with HSBC PDF statements exactly as they come out of online banking. You don't need CSV exports, Open Banking connections, or any third-party bank integrations. Download your PDF, upload it, and you're done. Your banking relationship with HSBC stays exactly as it is.

What about Revolut, Starling, or Monzo?

If you use a digital-first business account like Revolut, Starling, or Monzo, you likely still have easy CSV export functionality — these banks were built with data portability in mind. In that case, you may not need MTDPrep for the extraction step, though you'd still need to categorise transactions into HMRC expense categories.

MTDPrep's first version is built for HSBC specifically because that's where the pain is greatest. Support for other banks will follow.

The bottom line

HSBC's removal of easy CSV exports has created a genuine headache for sole traders trying to prepare for Making Tax Digital. It's not insurmountable — but it does mean you need a different approach to get your records into a usable format.

MTDPrep is that approach. PDF in, MTD-ready records out — without typing out a single transaction by hand.

Related: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: What Sole Traders Need to Know in 2026

Found this useful? Add MTDPrep as a Google Preferred Source and our MTD guides will show up whenever you search the topics we cover.