Totals such as “Total paid in” are boxed, the running balance is hidden unless you switch on Show balances, and account and card numbers, and sort codes labelled as such, are masked to their last four digits. The boxed pages are re-rendered as images, so the hidden text is removed from the file, not covered. Each printed running balance is checked against the transactions before it; when they do not add up, or the statement prints no running balance, Bindery boxes more, not less: no rows are ticked as income automatically, so only the rows you tick are shown, and every other line with an amount and everything between them is boxed, with the reasons listed and a confirmation that you checked every page. Share less works on digital (text) statements; a scanned statement needs OCR first. A page without text gets no boxes from Share less: it is listed, so make it searchable with OCR first or box it yourself. After the redaction, Leak Check runs on the result and the done screen says what it found. Recipients may ask for the full statement or a bank-certified copy, and some, such as certain mortgage lenders and visa offices, do not accept redacted statements, so ask before you redact. Nothing is uploaded.
How it works
- Drop the statement — Redact opens on your device in Share less, with Proof of income selected and the likely income rows ticked
- Check the ticked rows (Credits only shortens the list), tick or untick any, and choose Box everything else
- Look over every page, drag a box over anything still showing, redact, and read the Leak Check result before you send it
Questions people ask
Which rows count as income?
Credits — money in — whose description says salary, payroll, wages, pension, benefit, Universal Credit, child benefit, DWP, HMRC, rent received, invoice paid or dividend, or the same in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Portuguese, and payers who pay in two or more times with similar amounts. A refund, a transfer between your own accounts (“to savings”, “from savings”, “own account”), a cash deposit or interest is never ticked. The ticks are a suggestion read from the descriptions, not a judgement of what your recipient counts as income: tick and untick rows until the list shows what they asked for.
What happens when the balances do not add up?
Bindery boxes more, not less. If a printed balance does not follow from the transactions before it, or the statement prints no running balance, no rows are ticked as income automatically — only the rows you tick are shown — and every other line with an amount, and everything between them, is boxed; if a page has amounts but no transactions could be read, the same happens on that page. The reasons are listed, and the redaction asks you to confirm you checked every page.
Does anything outside the pages give the account away?
Check the file name: the redacted copy keeps the original name with -redacted added, and a statement downloaded from online banking may carry the account number in it. Rename it before you send it. Document metadata is stripped with the redaction while Also strip document metadata is on, as it is by default.
Will a lender accept a redacted statement?
Ask first. Recipients may ask for the full statement or a bank-certified copy, and some, such as certain mortgage lenders and visa offices, do not accept redacted statements. Where a redacted copy is accepted, the black boxes show plainly that transactions were hidden; Bindery does not disguise that.