Downloading transactions into QuickBooks can be a great timesaver, and eases the tedious task of data-entry since we humans no longer need to type much, but can simply agree or not to QB’s suggestions via mouse clicks, sometimes to dozens of transactions at once.  This means less time to get all of the data in, fewer errors, and better consistency.  In this blog entry we cover the basics of transaction downloads into QuickBooks.

Connecting Your Bank and Quickbooks

To begin, make sure your bank or credit card connects to QB (and these days almost all have this feature) and that you are set up for online access to the desired bank or credit card account.

Then begin on the QB side by getting into the Online Banking area.   Every year Intuit always seems to rearrange the menus a bit, but in the current version of QB Online for example, on the Home Screen click the “Connect account” link towards the bottom right of the screen.  From here, choose your financial institution from the list, or search for it.  Then go with the flow.  On desktop versions of QuickBooks you may right-click on the desired QB account from your chart-of-accounts (to see the chart of accounts from just about anywhere do Control-A) then click Edit, then click “Set Up Online Services.”  A third method is to click the Online Banking button on the icon bar.  All go to the same wizard which walks you through connecting your bank directly to QB.

You should periodically update your QuickBooks data files by connecting to each financial institution, and as transactions are presented, simply complete any empty fields such as the vendor name, expense account and a memo.  At first this will take significant time, but after a while QB gets smarter and remembers vendor names and associated expense accounts.  This is referred to as Matching, and allows you to simply agree to new entries based on previous ones.  You can also add multiple transactions at once.

Downloading your transactions directly into QuickBooks is faster and less work than manual entries, even for accounts where there are just a few transactions per month. Error-prone activities like typing in amounts, dates and vendor info are largely eliminated too.

Bulk Monthly Entries to QB

The biggest downside to downloading may concern the question of whether it’s best to download each and every transaction, or download and enter the entire statement in a single batch entry.  Batch entries are usually figured by downloading an entire month of transactions at once into a spreadsheet (sometimes as a .csv file), then only the monthly totals are entered into a big journal entry.

For example, if you charge 40 restaurant visits per month on a credit card, including frequent visits to “The Gentlemen’s Lingerie Club” and a single lunch at the “Altoona Hot Dog Palace” where you will certainly never go again, do you really want this to clog-up your QB file?  Instead, you may prefer a single entry where all 40 entries are totaled, with just one debit to “Promos and Entertainment.”  Then “Automobile Expenses,” “Office Expenses,” etc.  Neither the gentlemen’s club nor the hot dog palace appear anywhere in QB, but no information is lost since this can easily be traced back to the statements.  In these type of JE’s, I enter a note saying something like “Detail at Amex9999-2016-04-30.xlsx,” and this entire spreadsheet can usually be attached to the entry.

This method requires an intermediate step, good MS Excel skills, and a bank vendor offering Excel or csv transaction downloads (quite common, like Amex and Citi), but may be faster, especially for over 100 transactions per month.  Reconciliations are easier too.

More on this in a future entry.