Uploading your credit report

Upload a free credit report PDF from ClearScore, Experian, Equifax, Credit Karma or TransUnion. keel reads the report, finds all your accounts, and unlocks the debt management section of your health score. One upload gives you two things: faster account setup and a more complete score.

keel works with any UK credit report PDF — the listed providers are the ones we've tested. Less common providers (Noddle, MoneySavingExpert Credit Club, direct Equifax) will likely work too, but if you hit a snag, try ClearScore or Experian first.

How it works

1. Upload — drop or select your credit report PDF.
2. Extraction — keel reads the report (usually 5–30 seconds) and pulls out every account: current accounts, savings, credit cards, mortgages and loans.
3. Review — accounts are grouped by type. Select the ones you want to track. Accounts already in keel are shown but can't be duplicated.
4. Confirm — selected accounts are added to keel. Your debt management score unlocks immediately, and if the report shows savings balances higher than your declared estimate, your emergency fund score updates too.

What you'll see on the review screen

Current accounts — your main spending and income accounts. Balances on a credit report show overdraft use only, so £0 means the account is in credit. Your actual balance appears after your first statement import.

Credit cards — what you spend on credit. keel matches payments from your current account so nothing is double-counted.

Mortgage — tracked as a balance and monthly payment. You don't need to import mortgage statements; the credit report balance is enough.

Loans and finance — bank loans and personal loans are worth tracking because they improve keel's debt-to-income calculation and debt coaching, so they're pre-selected. Phone contracts, car finance and buy-now-pay-later are deselected by default — those payments already appear on your current account statement, so adding them would double-count.

Closed accounts — collected at the bottom behind a toggle. You usually don't need these; they're there for reference in case you're still making payments on one.

What it unlocks

The debt management component of your score (150 points) is built from three signals in your report:

• Debt-to-income ratio (60 pts) — total non-mortgage debt against annual income
• Balance trajectory (50 pts) — is your debt going down over time?
• Repayment consistency (40 pts) — consecutive months of on-time payments

See How your score works for the full picture.

Whose report is this?

If your household has more than one member, keel asks whose report you're uploading before you pick the file, so accounts and balances are attributed to the right person. Partners you've declared in Settings → Household appear in the picker straight away — even if they've never signed in — and so do partners with pending invitations. If your household is just you, no picker shows.

Re-uploading later

The Accounts screen always shows a credit report card at the top of your account list — before your first upload it invites you to discover accounts; afterwards it shows when your last report was uploaded and offers a fresh upload. It never disappears, so re-uploading is never a dead end.

Re-uploading runs the same flow. Accounts already in your household show as "Already in keel" and won't be duplicated — their balances refresh silently in the background. The summary on the done screen reads honestly: a first upload might say "Added 3 accounts, unlocked debt management, and updated your emergency fund by £4,500", while a refresh with nothing new says "Refreshed balances on 8 accounts. Nothing else moved." The "debt management unlocked" celebration only fires once, on your first upload.

Why it works this way

Why a PDF upload rather than a live connection? It's free, you stay in control of when your data is shared, and it covers the core use case. A real-time credit monitoring connection is a possible future upgrade.

Why do current accounts show £0? Credit reports only list current accounts with an overdraft facility, and the balance shown is how much of the overdraft is in use. £0 means you're in credit — your real balance comes from your first statement import.

Why is the mortgage excluded from debt-to-income? It's asset-backed debt that most UK households carry. Including it would unfairly penalise homeowners.

Good to know

• If your report has no open accounts, keel shows an error and asks you to try a fresh report.
• If you upload a bank statement by mistake, keel detects it and redirects you to the statement import flow.
• For an unsupported provider, keel attempts extraction anyway. If parsing fails, try a ClearScore or Experian report instead.
• The "last credit report" card always reflects your freshest report's date. If you upload a recent report and later add an older, backdated one to fill in history, the card still shows the recent one's age. Uploading the same report twice — the most recent upload wins.
• Recently made bankrupt? Accounts may show balances that will eventually be written off. You can import them as-is and the balances will update when you upload a fresh report showing the updated status.

FAQ

How often should I upload a new credit report? Every 3–6 months is ideal. Your balance trajectory score improves when keel can compare your current report against a previous one, and keel will prompt you when your report is getting stale.

Does keel store my credit report? No. The original PDF is processed and then discarded. Only the structured data — account names, balances, payment history — is kept.

Why don't I see my savings accounts? Some credit report providers don't include savings accounts. Your savings balance for the emergency fund score comes from your declared estimate or from importing a savings account statement.

Can I update account balances without re-uploading? Not yet — this is planned. For now, re-uploading a fresh credit report updates all balances automatically.