Convert Macquarie Bank CSV to Wave

The short answer

The Macquarie Bank file has 10 columns, dates written as DD Mon YYYY and separate debit and credit columns. The CSV written for Wave has the columns Date,Description,Amount. So the date is rewritten as MM/DD/YYYY, the amount is written as one signed number, and the text columns are moved as in the table below.

Paid profile. The free manual column mapper works for any bank, this one included, but the free version writes only the first 25 converted rows of a file. The 9 USD one-time licence adds the ready-made Macquarie Bank profile (one of the 35 paid profiles) and removes the 25-row limit. The column table on this page is free to read and can be used to fill in the manual mapper.

Open the converter

The converter runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded.

What the Macquarie Bank CSV looks like

• Country: Australia.
• Account type: not stated by source (config file is named default).
• Header row: yes, one row before the first transaction.
• Columns: 10, separated by commas.
• Date format: DD Mon YYYY, for example 04 Mar 2024 (the source writes it as d M Y).
• Amounts: separate debit and credit columns. Evidence for the direction: it is inferred from the role the open-source importer gives the column; no sample row confirms it.
• Header text: the source gives column positions and meanings only, not the header names.

Note kept with this layout in the profile data: Ten columns. Dates look like 05 Mar 2024.

What Wave accepts

• File type: CSV.
• Header row: not stated in the excerpts read; the converter writes one.
• Required columns: Date, Description, Amount.
• Amounts: Three or four columns: date, description, and the amount either all in one column or one column each for deposits and withdrawals. For credit card statements, purchases must be positive and payments negative.
• Dates: MM/DD/YYYY.

From a web search excerpt of the vendor's help page (the page itself refuses automated reading; re-check it in a browser): "To import properly, your CSV file must have three or four columns: date, amount of the transaction (all in one column, or one column each for deposits and withdrawals), and description."

Column-by-column mapping

Every column of the Macquarie Bank file, left to right, and where it ends up in the Wave file.

Pitfalls for Macquarie Bank to Wave

Dates

• The date must be reordered. The bank file is written day first, then month, then year (DD Mon YYYY, for example 04 Mar 2024). The Wave file is written month first, then day, then year (MM/DD/YYYY, for example 03/04/2024).
• The month is an English abbreviation (04 Mar 2024). A spreadsheet set to another language may not read it as a date, so treat the column as text when converting by hand.
• Wave on dates: MM/DD/YYYY. As stated by the vendor: the date column must be in MM/DD/YYYY format.

Amounts and their direction

• Debit and credit columns must be merged into one signed Amount: credit minus debit. A debit of 4.50 becomes -4.50 and a credit of 2500.00 stays 2500.00.
• Wave's own rule: Three or four columns: date, description, and the amount either all in one column or one column each for deposits and withdrawals. For credit card statements, purchases must be positive and payments negative.
• How sure the direction is: it is inferred from the role the open-source importer gives the column; no sample row confirms it. Compare two rows you recognise with the preview before importing; the converter has a switch that flips the sign of every amount.

Other Wave import rules

• Keep only the date, amount and description columns; delete any other columns.
• The description column can be empty, but if filled it must contain words, not only numbers.
• Remove special characters such as #, &, $ and * from the file.
• Files with more than 100 rows tend not to upload; split them into files of no more than 100 rows each.

Before and after: an invented example

Invented sample data. These four rows were made up for this page. They are not from a real Macquarie Bank export and hold no real account, name or balance.

The source gives column positions only, so the headings below are the column number and what the column holds, not the bank's header text. The 3 unused columns of the file are left out of the table.

Do it by hand in a spreadsheet, free

These steps need no tool from this site. The cell references follow the column positions of the profile above; if your spreadsheet uses semicolons between formula arguments, replace the commas.

1. Open the Macquarie Bank CSV in a spreadsheet program through its import dialog. Set the date column (column 1) to Text so the program does not reinterpret it, and leave the amount columns as numbers.
2. Row 1 is the header and the transactions start in row 2.
3. Date: rewrite column A from DD Mon YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY (04 Mar 2024 becomes 03/04/2024). This bank's dates do not have a fixed width, so a position formula is not reliable: split the column into its parts (Text to Columns, or the split function of your spreadsheet) and join them again in the new order.
4. Amounts: merge the two columns into one signed Amount, credit minus debit: =ABS(H2)-ABS(G2) An empty cell counts as zero. Money out comes out negative.
5. Text columns: fill Description (from column 2 and column 6). Where several bank columns feed one column, join them with a separator such as " - ".
6. Apply Wave's own rules from its help page: Keep only the date, amount and description columns; delete any other columns. The description column can be empty, but if filled it must contain words, not only numbers. Remove special characters such as #, &, $ and * from the file. Files with more than 100 rows tend not to upload; split them into files of no more than 100 rows each.
7. Keep only the new columns, put the header row Date,Description,Amount on top, save the sheet as a comma-separated CSV, and compare the dates, the direction of the amounts and the number of rows with your statement in Wave's import preview.

Or use the converter

Load the file, choose the Macquarie Bank profile in the bank list and the target Wave, read the preview, then download. The conversion runs locally in your browser: the file is not uploaded, and only the licence key is sent for unlocking.

Paid profile. The free manual column mapper works for any bank, this one included, but the free version writes only the first 25 converted rows of a file. The 9 USD one-time licence adds the ready-made Macquarie Bank profile (one of the 35 paid profiles) and removes the 25-row limit. The column table on this page is free to read and can be used to fill in the manual mapper.

Open the converter Licence terms

Where this layout comes from

No bank supplied or approved this layout. It was copied on 5 October 2026 from a public open-source importer file kept by volunteers: firefly-iii/import-configurations, file au/macquarie/default.json

The lines used from the source: "headers": true, "date": "d M Y", roles: date_transaction, description, account-name, category-name, _ignore, note, amount_debit, amount_credit, _ignore, _ignore

The Wave rules come from the vendor's own help pages: support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208621626-Upload-a-bank-or-credit-card-statement-in-csv-format (named as text, not linked), support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208622596 (named as text, not linked). The official page refuses automated fetches (HTTP 403 or a script-only page), so the rules were read from web search excerpts of that same official URL on the checked date. Re-check in a browser before relying on a detail.

Bank formats change. Banks alter their CSV exports without notice and vendors change their import rules, so this mapping can be out of date. If the preview looks wrong, use the manual column mapper.

Related pages

Macquarie Bank to other apps

The Macquarie Bank guides for YNAB, QuickBooks Online and Xero, in the bank list

Other Australia exports to Wave

• Commonwealth Bank
• ANZ
• National Australia Bank (NAB)
• ING Australia

All banks and apps