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Direct bank connections with QuickBooks Online | FAQ

SOLVED•by QuickBooks•149•Updated September 20, 2023

Direct bank connections (or direct feeds) provides a secure and reliable connection between your bank account and QuickBooks. By establishing a connection directly with the bank, QuickBooks can receive transactions without requiring you to enter your bank sign-in information into QuickBooks.

Frequently asked questions

Standard Bank ConnectionDirect Bank Connection
Connect by logging in with your internet banking username and passwordConnect your bank account by either completing a Client Authority form or enabling the connection from an Internet Banking setting for Westpac and ANZ accounts
Transactions start flowing into QuickBooks immediately after the connection is set up successfullyYour bank provides QuickBooks with bank transaction data daily, and we bring them into your QuickBooks company
All bank account types are supported, even loan and term deposit accountsNot all bank account types are supported
QuickBooks logs onto your internet Banking and screen scrapes your account's transactions to bring them into your QuickBooks companyYour bank provides QuickBooks with bank transaction data directly and on a daily basis, then we bring them into your QuickBooks company
Any time you update your bank account credentials, you have to update this in QuickBooks as well to continue receiving transactionsUpdating your bank account credentials will not interrupt transactional data from flowing into your QuickBooks company

Absolutely. Once the bank has processed your Client Authority Forms (CAF), or your internet banking authorisation if you have ANZ or Westpac accounts, you'll be able to merge and sync your Standard feed together with your new Direct feed to become one account.

Just look out for the Get a better connection message under your bank account tile which looks like this:

After a transaction has been processed by the bank, they are sent to QuickBooks the following weeknight. Your transactions are sent nightly, from Monday to Friday.

Transactions taken by the bank on:Transactions available in QuickBooks:
MondayTuesday
TuesdayWednesday
WednesdayThursday
ThursdayFriday
FridayMonday
SaturdayMonday
SundayMonday

We use bank-level security to keep your information safe. For more details please visit our Privacy site.

Direct feeds are free for all QuickBooks Online customers.

If your bank or your account type is not eligible for direct feeds, you can try connecting via a Standard feed which is available to a lot more accounts. Alternatively, you can manually upload your transactions into QuickBooks Online.

After your bank approves your connection, your bank will begin sending your transactions from the approval date forward. No historical transactions will be sent to QuickBooks. You can follow the manual uploads process to get historical transactions into QuickBooks Online if you need to. Simply enter the dates and off you go!

If you bank with American Express, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, or Westpac, you have a slightly different process:

However, for all other eligable accounts, here is the process to connect your bank account via a direct feed:

  1. Go to Transactions and select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Select Connect Account if this is your first time connecting, or Link account if you've created one in the past.
  3. Search for your bank.
  4. Select Get direct bank feeds.
  5. Read the steps on connecting the bank feeds, then select Get direct feeds.
  6. Enter your account details. It's important that these fields match what the bank has on file for you.
    1. Please note that for Credit Card accounts, you need to enter your 9-digit Account Number, not your actual credit card number.
  7. Select the bank account you want to connect to, select Connect and an authorisation form will be created.
  8. Select Preview form.
  9. Print the form and hand-sign it. If there are two signatories, both signatories will need to sign the form. If there are more than two, then all signatories need to sign the form.
  10. Email or post the form using the following details:
    • Email: intuitforms@siss.com.au
    • Subject: QuickBooks Bank Feed Request
    • OR
    • Mail: SISS Data Services Pty Ltd
    • Locked Bag 3060
    • Crows Nest, NSW, 1585

You can get a more comprehensive overview of this process via the manage your bank connection article.

Once we receive the Client Authority Form, it will usually takes up to 10 business days to activate. If you emailed the form to intuitforms@siss.com.au, you'll receive an email from SISS acknowledging receipt of the form and starting the 10 business days count.

If you connect to a Westpac or ANZ Direct feed, it usually takes up to 2-3 business days to activate.

If your Direct Feed still hasn't connected after the above time frames, contact our team for further assistance.

SISS is an established third-party partner of QuickBooks Online in Australia who has been vetted and confirmed to meet our strict security and data protection standards. SISS provides data processing services to many banks, financial institutions and companies like Intuit.

You won't ever need to contact SISS. Any questions about your Direct Feed can be handled by the QuickBooks team.

To check the status of your application:

  1. Go to Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Select the Direct feed account shown within the Bank and Cards page.

The status of your application, such as 'Pending', will be displayed here. Any alternative alerts prompting action, will also be shown here.

The most common reason for a decline is that the signature on the form does not match with the bank's records. The best way to resolve this is to update your new signature at your bank branch and re-submit your Client Authority Form.

Another common reason is dual signatories. If your account is a joint account, make sure that both you and the joint account holder hand-sign the form before submission.

If your application is in error or has been denied, it’s likely that something is wrong with the form. The error message you'll see in the Bank transactions (Take me there) tab should give you an indication of the information that SISS needs clarified.

Best practice in this situation is to

Repeat the process of connecting to a direct feed and submitting a refreshed form.

If you disconnect a bank account, the bank account will stay active in QuickBooks. However, disconnecting the account will stop QuickBooks from directly downloading and delivering your transactions from your bank.

You can reconnect to the same bank account later if you choose to. However, you'll need to re-apply for approval from your bank. You can do this by going through the full process of completing a new Client Authority Form and posting this to us again.

Have any other questions for our team?

If any of your questions were left unanswered, we'd love to hear them!
Pop over to our QuickBooks Community's discussion on bank connections where you can ask your questions, have them answered by qualified QuickBooks Online experts, and hopefully help others with the same questions out in the process.

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