Document Guide

Convert 1099-B to Excel with Full Proceeds and Cost Basis Detail

Pull every transaction row — description, dates acquired/sold, proceeds, cost basis, and gain/loss — out of a scanned or digital 1099-B and into one clean spreadsheet.

A consolidated 1099-B from a broker like Fidelity, Schwab, or E*TRADE often runs 10-40+ pages once you include every covered and noncovered lot. Retyping Box 1a (description), Box 1b/1c (dates acquired/sold), Box 1d (proceeds), Box 1e (cost basis), and Box 1g (wash sale disallowed) for a few hundred trades by hand is slow and error-prone. This tool converts the full form into an Excel or CSV file with one row per transaction, keeping proceeds and cost-basis columns aligned so you can total gains/losses, reconcile against your brokerage summary, or prep data for Form 8949.

Who This Is For

  • Individual investors with a multi-page consolidated 1099-B from a brokerage
  • Tax preparers reconciling client cost-basis data across several 1099-B statements
  • Bookkeepers building an internal capital gains tracker outside their tax software
  • Anyone who received a scanned or faxed 1099-B and needs it in spreadsheet form

When This Is Relevant

  • You have a 200+ line consolidated 1099-B and need totals by short-term vs. long-term before filing
  • Your tax software's CSV import rejected a broker's PDF export and you need a clean re-format
  • You're comparing cost basis reported by the broker (Box 1e) against your own trade log
  • You received 1099-B forms from multiple brokers and want them merged into one spreadsheet

Supported Inputs

  • Digital PDF 1099-B statements downloaded from a brokerage portal
  • Scanned paper 1099-B forms mailed by a broker
  • PNG or JPEG photos of a printed 1099-B page
  • Multi-page consolidated 1099-B PDFs combining covered and noncovered lots

Expected Outputs

  • Excel (.xlsx) file with one row per transaction and columns for description, dates, proceeds, cost basis, and gain/loss
  • CSV file formatted for import into Excel, Google Sheets, or tax prep software

Common Challenges

  • Consolidated statements mix short-term covered, long-term covered, and noncovered sections with subtotal rows that look like transactions — these need to be flagged and excluded from row-level totals
  • Box 1e (cost basis) is sometimes blank on noncovered securities because the broker isn't required to report it, which can look like a missing field rather than an intentional gap
  • Wash sale adjustments in Box 1g apply to specific lots only, so a spreadsheet needs that column preserved rather than folded into proceeds
  • Scanned or faxed 1099-B pages with light toner or skewed alignment can shift column boundaries, misreading dates acquired vs. dates sold

How It Works

  1. Upload the 1099-B PDF, scan, or photo — single form or the full multi-page consolidated statement
  2. The AI reads each transaction line and maps values to fields like Box 1a description, Box 1d proceeds, Box 1e cost basis, and Box 2 gain/loss type
  3. Review the extracted spreadsheet, checking subtotal rows and any blank cost-basis fields on noncovered lots
  4. Export as Excel or CSV, then use it to total gains/losses, reconcile against your brokerage summary, or hand off for Form 8949 prep

Why PDFexcel.ai

  • Extracts proceeds and cost basis as separate columns instead of a single flattened summary line, matching how Box 1d and Box 1e appear on the actual form
  • OCR handles scanned or faxed 1099-B pages, not just digital PDFs, which matters since some brokers still mail paper statements
  • Batch processing lets you run 1099-B forms from several brokers in one pass and combine them into a single spreadsheet
  • Custom field selection means you can pull only the columns you need (e.g., skip Box 4 federal withholding if it's always zero) rather than a fixed template

Limitations

  • Very long consolidated statements with nested subtotal-by-term tables may need a manual pass to separate summary rows from actual trades
  • Cost basis left blank by the broker on noncovered securities will export blank too — the tool doesn't calculate missing basis figures
  • Heavily faded fax copies or low-resolution phone photos can produce misread digits in dollar columns, so a spot-check against the original is worth the extra two minutes
  • This extracts what's printed on the form; it doesn't compute Schedule D totals or file taxes for you

Example Use Cases

  • An investor with three brokerage accounts merges three separate 1099-B PDFs into one Excel file to hand to their CPA
  • A tax preparer converts a client's 40-page consolidated Schwab 1099-B to check the broker's short-term total against the client's own trade log
  • A bookkeeper extracts proceeds and cost basis columns to build a running capital gains tracker in a shared Google Sheet
  • Someone who received a mailed paper 1099-B photographs it with their phone and converts it to a spreadsheet instead of retyping 60 lots by hand

Frequently Asked Questions

Will this separate short-term and long-term transactions automatically?

It extracts the section headers and Box 2 gain/loss type as they appear on the form, so short-term and long-term rows are labeled in the output. You'll still want to sort or filter by that column since brokers print them as separate blocks with their own subtotals, not a single sorted list.

What happens if cost basis is missing on some lots?

Brokers aren't required to report cost basis (Box 1e) on noncovered securities, so those cells will come through blank in the spreadsheet — that's a reflection of the source document, not an extraction error. You'll need your own records to fill those in if the IRS requires it.

Can it handle a 30-page consolidated 1099-B from Fidelity or Schwab?

Yes, multi-page PDFs are supported and processed as one document, producing a single spreadsheet with a row per transaction. A statement that size can take a couple of minutes to process, and it's worth reviewing the subtotal rows before trusting a grand total.

Is this the same as extracting just the cost basis number?

No — this converts the full 1099-B including proceeds, dates acquired and sold, wash sale adjustments, and gain/loss type, not just a single cost-basis figure. If you only need cost basis pulled from a simpler 1099 form, that's a narrower use case.

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