A Barclays statement prints five columns — Date, Description, Money out, Money in and Balance — and two of its habits catch converters out. Money out and Money in are separate columns rather than one signed figure, so the direction of every payment lives in horizontal position alone; lose the column geometry and a year of spending reads as income. And there is no separate reference or transaction-type column: the payment type and the payee reference both sit inside Description, which is why that field runs long and wraps onto a second line under a narrow column. The Balance column is the other trap, because Barclays prints it only against the last transaction of each day rather than on every row.
- Money out and Money in stay separate, mapping to the Debit and Credit columns so no payment silently flips direction.
- Wrapped descriptions are rejoined, so a card purchase that spills onto a second line stays one transaction rather than becoming two.
- End-of-day balances are handled as end-of-day, not misread as a per-row balance that has gone wrong.
- The printed opening and closing balances verify the output, so a dropped row surfaces as a DISCREPANCY rather than passing quietly.