The short answer
The Capital One file has 7 columns, dates written as YYYY-MM-DD 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 Capital One 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.
The converter runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded.
What the Capital One CSV looks like
- Country: United States.
- Account type: credit card.
- Header row: yes, one row before the first transaction.
- Columns: 7, separated by commas.
- Date format: YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2024-03-04 (the source writes it as yyyy-mmm-dd (as written in the source comment)).
- Amounts: separate debit and credit columns. Evidence for the direction: the source says it in words.
- Header text: the source prints it, so the columns below carry their real names.
Note kept with this layout in the profile data: The source comment writes the date as yyyy-mmm-dd and sets no explicit date-format rule; year-month-day order is certain, the month may be numeric or abbreviated, so the converter should accept both. Header names are taken from the comment and from the csv2ofx mapping ("Card No.", "Posted Date", "Debit", "Credit", "Description").
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.
| Wave column | Required by Wave | Filled from the Capital One file |
|---|---|---|
| Date | required | column 1 "Transaction Date" |
| Description | required | column 4 "Description" |
| Amount | required | column 7 "Credit" (positive) minus column 6 "Debit" (negative) |
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 Capital One file, left to right, and where it ends up in the Wave file.
| Column | Header text | What it holds | Where it goes in the Wave file |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Transaction Date | Transaction date | Date, rewritten as MM/DD/YYYY |
| 2 | Posted Date | Posting date | Not copied |
| 3 | Card No. | Account or card identifier | Not copied |
| 4 | Description | Description | Description |
| 5 | Category | Category | Not copied |
| 6 | Debit | Money out (debit) | Amount, as a negative number |
| 7 | Credit | Money in (credit) | Amount, as a positive number |
Pitfalls for Capital One to Wave
Dates
- The date must be reordered. The bank file is written year first, then month, then day (YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2024-03-04). The Wave file is written month first, then day, then year (MM/DD/YYYY, for example 03/04/2024).
- 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.
- Card account in Wave: Wave asks for purchases as positive and payments as negative on a credit card statement, the opposite of the converter's default (money out negative). Use the converter's flip option when the file goes into a credit card account in Wave.
- How sure the direction is: the source says it in words.
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 Capital One export and hold no real account, name or balance.
The column headings are the header text the source prints.
| 1: Transaction Date | 2: Posted Date | 3: Card No. | 4: Description | 5: Category | 6: Debit | 7: Credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-04 | 2024-03-05 | 0000 | COFFEE CORNER MAIN ST | Eating out | 4.50 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 2024-03-06 | 0000 | PAYROLL EXAMPLE CO | Income | 2500.00 | |
| 2024-03-07 | 2024-03-08 | 0000 | RENT MARCH | Housing | 1234.56 | |
| 2024-03-11 | 2024-03-12 | 0000 | REFUND EXAMPLE SHOP | Shopping | 15.25 |
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03/04/2024 | COFFEE CORNER MAIN ST | -4.50 |
| 03/05/2024 | PAYROLL EXAMPLE CO | 2500.00 |
| 03/07/2024 | RENT MARCH | -1234.56 |
| 03/11/2024 | REFUND EXAMPLE SHOP | 15.25 |
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.
- Open the Capital One CSV in a spreadsheet program through its import dialog. Set the date column (column 1 "Transaction Date") to Text so the program does not reinterpret it, and leave the amount columns as numbers.
- Row 1 is the header and the transactions start in row 2.
- Date: rewrite column A from YYYY-MM-DD to MM/DD/YYYY (2024-03-04 becomes 03/04/2024). In a new column, for the first transaction:
=MID(A2,6,2)&"/"&MID(A2,9,2)&"/"&MID(A2,1,4)This formula reads the date by character position, so it only works while the dates are text and every date has a two-digit day and month. Fill it down. - Amounts: merge the two columns into one signed Amount, credit minus debit:
=ABS(G2)-ABS(F2)An empty cell counts as zero. Money out comes out negative. - Text columns: fill Description (from column 4 "Description"). Where several bank columns feed one column, join them with a separator such as " - ".
- 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.
- 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 Capital One 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 Capital One 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.
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: simonmichael/hledger, file examples/csv/banking/capital-one.csv.rules
Also read: reubano/csv2ofx, file csv2ofx/mappings/capitalone.py
The lines used from the source: # this is the format that capital one returns if you export data as .csv as of July 9 2022 ; # columns are Transaction Date in yyyy-mmm-dd, Posted Date, Card no., Description, Category, Debit, Credit ; fields date, posting-date, _, description, _, amount-out, amount-in
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
Capital One to other apps
The Capital One guides for YNAB, QuickBooks Online and Xero, in the bank list