How to import a CSV or bank statement into QuickBooks Online

Which file to use

If your bank connects to QuickBooks, it brings in recent transactions by itself, often about the last 90 days, depending on the bank. Anything older, or from a bank that won’t connect, has to be uploaded. You have four options:

QBO, QFX and OFX files also carry the payee, memo and check number where the bank includes them, and an ID for each transaction. A CSV carries only the date, description and amount. To see what’s inside one of these files, open it in our free QFX to CSV converter.

Upload a CSV, QBO, QFX or OFX file

First, pick the dates. So nothing comes in twice, start the file the day after the last transaction already in that QuickBooks account. For a new account, go back as far as you need. For an account with an opening balance, start on the opening balance date.

1. In QuickBooks Online, go to Bank transactions (under Accounting, or under Transactions in some menus).
2. Select the account’s tile, open the arrow next to Link account and choose Upload from file. If no account is connected yet, choose Or upload transactions manually.
3. Drag in your file, or select it, and press Continue.
4. Choose the QuickBooks account the transactions belong to (or Add new), then Continue.
5. For a CSV, answer three questions and match the columns (see below), then Continue. QBO, QFX and OFX files skip this step.
6. Tick the transactions to import, press Continue, then Yes, then Done.

• No tile for the account? If you disconnected the bank, or the tile is missing, go to the gear icon → Import data → Bank data. It opens the same upload.
• Older answers look different. QuickBooks has moved this menu over the years (it used to be Banking → Update → File upload). The steps above are today’s.

The column-matching screen

For a CSV, QuickBooks asks three questions before it reads the file:

Then match Date, Description and Amount (or the two amount columns) to your file’s columns. On the preview, money in should be positive and money out negative. If they’re the wrong way round, choose QuickBooks’ option to reverse all values before you continue.

Credit cards

On a credit card, a purchase is money spent and a payment or refund is money received. In a one-column file, purchases are minus numbers and payments are plus numbers:

Some banks’ card files come the other way round, so check the preview. Intuit also asks you to upload a card file into the credit card account, not a bank account.

CSV rules, all in one place

Intuit spreads its rules across four help pages. Here they are together. A file that follows them looks like this:

Download this sample CSV to compare with your bank’s file.

Where Intuit’s pages disagree

• File types. One page lists QBO, QFX and CSV; the next lists .csv, .txt, .qbo and .ofx. All four of CSV, QBO, QFX and OFX are listed somewhere. Excel files (.xlsx) aren’t, so save as CSV first.
• Date format. Intuit recommends dd/mm/yyyy, even on its US page, while its own example uses 1/1/2018. What matters is one format throughout, and choosing that same format on the matching screen.
• Subaccounts. One page says you can’t upload into a subaccount; another says you can unless the related account is connected to the bank. If it fails, upload to the parent account.

Intuit’s pages: Manually upload transactions · Format CSV files · Common CSV errors · Fix bank upload errors

Upload a PDF or photo of a statement

QuickBooks Online can now read a statement itself. Intuit says it takes PDF, JPG, PNG or HEIC files, in English, from any bank or credit card, and a scan or photo is fine. Loan and brokerage statements aren’t supported.

1. Go to Bank transactions → arrow next to Link account → Upload from file.
2. Choose the account first, then upload the statement.
3. QuickBooks reads it. If it isn’t sure, it may send the statement to one of its experts to review, which Intuit says rarely takes more than an hour.
4. Check the side-by-side view: the statement on the left, the rows it found on the right. Fix anything that’s wrong.
5. Tick the transactions to keep and press Import. They appear in the bank feed for review.

What people using it report, which Intuit’s help doesn’t mention:

• One statement at a time.
• No warning if you upload the same statement twice.
• A statement with several cards on it doesn’t split by card.
• It sometimes stalls while reading, and works on a later try.

QuickBooks shows the statement’s beginning and ending balance next to the rows, but it doesn’t require the rows to add up to them. That check is yours to do (see below).

Old months that only exist as PDFs

Catch-up work runs into the same wall: the bank feed only goes back so far, banks keep downloads for a limited time, and closed accounts often have no downloads at all. What’s left is the PDF statements. You can upload them to QuickBooks one at a time, or convert them all into a CSV or OFX file first.

Before you post: check it matches the statement

Uploaded transactions wait in the bank feed and don’t touch your books until you add or match them. That’s the moment to check them against the statement:

1. Count. The number of rows matches the number of transactions on the statement.
2. Dates. The first and last rows fall inside the statement period.
3. Totals. Money in and money out each match the statement’s totals.
4. Balance. Opening balance + money in − money out = closing balance.
5. Repeats. Nothing the bank feed already brought in, and nothing from an earlier upload.

Why totals alone can miss a mistake

Say a deposit of 1,250.00 was read as 1,520.00, and another deposit of 480.00 was read as 210.00. One is 270.00 too high and the other 270.00 too low, so the count, the money-in total and the closing balance all still match. Two rows are wrong, and none of those checks shows it.

What catches it is the running balance. Most statements print the balance after each transaction: work it out row by row and compare. The first row where yours and the bank’s differ is the mistake. That is the check Crossfooted runs on every row of every statement. For the full method, see how to reconcile a bank statement.

Errors and fixes

After the upload

• Review in the bank feed. Add, match or exclude each transaction. Bank rules you set up beforehand can categorize them as they arrive.
• Categories come from you, not the file. The bank upload only reads date, description and amount, so leave category columns out and let bank rules or your review do it.
• Then reconcile each month against the statement’s closing balance. To keep the statement with the reconciliation, attach it when you finish reconciling.
• Using QuickBooks Desktop? Desktop’s CSV import is for lists like customers, vendors and items, not bank transactions. Bank data goes into Desktop as a .qbo file from your bank, and Desktop has no PDF upload.