Adding a bank feed to an account that was manually input?

Awesome.  That was what I was hoping :)  

I don't understand "bank feeds".  I understand reconciling your books to the bank.  But reconciliation does not "add" any transactions to your accounting system.

Bank Feeds on the other hand enable you to "add" transactions.  Can someone give me a few examples of when, as a disciplined business you would have a transaction coming from the bank that's not already in your QB system?  And I'm not talking bank fees and interest.  

As a businessman, I want to originate all transaction in my business - not from the bank.  I am confused on the reason why anyone would let a bank feed create a transaction in their accounting system.

Please enlighten me.  Thanks.

Hi jrm2atl,

I wanted to give you a little detailed break down of how bank feeds and reconciliation in Quickbooks Online works to see if it might enlighten you.

We use bank feeds to connect to your bank or financial institution where the primary goal is bringing in your banking transactions.

The next steps would be to either ADD or MATCH each transaction that comes through the bank feed.

This step is NOT reconciliation, when we ADD - we are confirming that the transaction is true and adding it to the rest of our transactions in the bank feed.

When we MATCH, we are saying (for example) - this money that has come through belongs to an open invoice that we already have in Quickbooks, so the system will automatically create the Receive Transaction and link it with the invoice.

Reconciliation is the very last step where we go through each transaction one by one, checking them against our bank statement to verify everything matches and balances correctly.

I am simply explaining how the system works in terms of bank feeds and reconciliation.

If you think it could be done better, I encourage you to leave some feedback in-product by going to Settings > Feedback.

Kristian, 

Kristian_S maybe you misunderstand what I was asking.  I understand matching and I understand bank reconciliations.  I asked for examples of situations where there is a "transaction" that is NOT in QB but is in the bank feed so the user would choose to ADD the transaction to QB. 

Matching is one thing, Adding is something completely different.  So please provide examples of when a diligent company would NOT have a transaction in QB but would have a transaction in the  bank feed.

And again, I'm not talking bank interest or fees.  Thank You.

Let me share an example, @jrm2atl.

Use "Add" if you've made purchases on the go, or if you have unintended charges that you haven't recorded yet.

The Add will automatically record the transaction in your Quickbooks account.

You can visit our help articles page to learn and read some great articles for future reference.

I’m always here to help.

"you made purchases on the go...." The point I'm trying to make is, if you're sitting at your computer ready to run a bank feed then you should have kept your receipts and entered the "on the go" transaction into QB prior to running the bank feed. Old school. Diligent. Conscientious.

I just find the bank feed ADD feature dangerous...and sloppy and lazy bookkeeping.

Accounting is a system based on “controls”. Things just don’t happen in accounting willy-nilly. It’s all about controls. If you lose control, you’re done.

It alarms me that someone can just click ADD and any old transaction can be created. Is there a way to deactivate this feature?

Hi jrm2atl-

Thank you for the feedback. We understand that the Add feature is meant to be used sparingly. The Match feature is typically our recommendation as the feature will close the loop and balance the transaction. For example, after you input an invoice, when the funds appear in the bank feed you will be able to Match to the open invoice, and in turn the invoice becomes paid and closed. The received funds that have been matched are then converted into a payment connected to that invoice.

The bank feed does allow complete oversight, if you do not wish to Add the transaction, if you've already recorded the transaction manually; you can Exclude the transaction when it appears and delete it. There is no requirement to connect to the bank feed as well. You can continue recording each transaction manually. Some business owners simply prefer to utilize the bank feed as their businesses can be completely mobile, making it more difficult to maintain the records manually on the go. 

We do not have the function to remove the Add feature, as it's a global feature available for all of our product regions, I would however encourage you to record this feedback so that our local team can review and adjust the local product of QuickBooks Online for greater oversight. Please select the Settings Icon and choose Feedback. Again, this goes directly to our product team here in the APAC region and they take customer recommendations under high priority. 

Hope you have a lovely rest of your week. 

-Christine

Agree with jrm.....it seems to be a sloppy system. Quickbooks desktop is so much better. 

Hi Dexterity, 

Thank you for the feedback and I'm sorry that the system isn't working the way you want it to. We are always looking at ways to improve so if you have any other feedback please don't hesitate to reach out. 

-Rebecca 

>>The bank feed does allow complete oversight, if you do not wish to Add the transaction, if you've already recorded the transaction manually; you can Exclude the transaction when it appears and delete it.<<

Hi Christine, I'm new to QB, how to tell the difference between a "transaction" in the bank feed and funds?

thanks.

Hello there, @gijeet. Welcome to the Community.

The bank feed transactions are those that are downloaded from your bank or financial institution. They're your real-life transactions that can be managed through the Banking page in QuickBooks Online (QBO). While your funds (bank balance) are the amount of money that's made available for business purposes. They're connected in the sense that they're your business transactions that need to be monitored accordingly to keep your financial data accurate.

When your account is connected to the online banking feature, QuickBooks automatically download your transactions. All you have to do is add and/match them to the existing entries in QuickBooks. This way, you can keep your books accurate and updated. To do this, you can refer to this article: Categorise and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Then, I'd recommend reconciling your accounts every month. This way, you're able to monitor your income, expenses, and other transactions accordingly. For the step-by-step guide, you can check out this article: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

Also, I'm adding this article to further guide you in managing the growth of your business using QBO: QuickBooks Help Articles. It includes topics about getting started video tutorials, banking, GST/BAS, and payroll, to name a few.

Let me know if you have other banking concerns or inquiries about managing transactions in QBO. I'm just around to help. Take care always.

Hi, sorry for the delayed response.  I’m still not sure why I would need to download “transactions” from the bank. 

Here’s how business works where I’m from…simplified.

You sell something on credit to a customer

You debit AR, credit merchandise

The customer mails a check to your business.  You open the envelope and apply the payment to their account.

You debit cash, credit AR.

You do this for all checks that were mailed in to you that day.

You then take the checks to the bank and make a deposit.

At the end of the month you download the bank statement and reconcile all deposits or payments made.

No transactions originated at the bank that I would have to download prior to doing a bank reconciliation

So I don’t understand what transactions originate at the “bank” before they come to my business?

Please explain.  Thanks.

Thanks for getting back to this thread, @gijeet.

Allow me to add more details with regards to your banking concerns in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Connecting your bank account to QuickBooks is optional. There's no need for you to connect with your Financial Institution if your customers won't pay you online or if you don't need to download your transactions from your bank. 

Since your customers pay you by mailing a check, you can simply create an invoice or sales receipt to record them in the program. 

If you're using a journal entry to record these transactions, you can still reconcile them without necessarily connecting your bank to QBO. 

All you need to do is to download your bank statement and compare it with the ones you've entered in QuickBooks.

For more info about this process, please check this article:  How to reconcile your accounts QBO.

Keep me posted if you need anything else or if you have other banking-related concerns in QuickBooks. I'll be here to help. Have a wonderful day.

Thanks ReymondO !  Now if my customers want to start paying me online or via an EFT how does that work with QB? Also, if I put up a site on Shopify, then I would download the sales transactions from SHOPIFY not the bank. I'm still confused as to what TRANSACTIONS are originating at the bank that I would have to ADD.  Please help...still very very confused as to what/why people are using bank feeds and adding transactions!!  Some examples would really help.  Thanks!

Thank you for getting back, @gijeet.

You need to set up the Accept Card Payments with PayPal app, your customer can then pay for their invoice with a debit card or credit card, processed by PayPal. They can also pay with their PayPal Wallet. I can guide you on how.

1. Select Invoice from the (+) New icon.
2. At the top of the invoice, tick Accept Card Payments with PayPal.
3. Enter the invoice details. Make sure to include the customer's email address.
4. Click Save and send.
5. Review the invoice. You can add any additional information to the subject line and body of the email.
6. Tap Send and close.

To learn more about the process, you can open this link: Accept PayPal and card payments using QuickBooks Online.

With regards to connecting a bank/credit card account to QuickBooks, you don't need to add your transactions into QuickBooks manually. Once the account is linked to QuickBooks, the system automatically downloads and categorises bank and credit card transactions for you. All you have to do is approve the work.

Here's an article you can read more about connecting bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online.

Moreover, you can open this link to know more about how Shopify works with QuickBooks Online.

If you have any other questions when managing your transactions in QuickBooks Online, please let me know by adding a comment below. I'm always here to help. Keep safe!

I completely agree that the bank feed feature is dangerous and can cause a lot of problems that take a lot  of time to sort out.  I don’t like that QuickBooks tells me what is going on rather than the other way around!  If bank feeds are handled incorrectly they are a disaster!  I don’t like them at all.  Multiple matching is also futile!  If it was my choice I would not be using QuickBooks! 

Thanks for joining in this thread, DonnaLL.

Appreciate your feedback on the banking feature in QuickBooks Online. Connecting your bank and credit card in QuickBooks Online is optional. You can either manually enter your bank transactions using a CSV file format or can connect your bank and credit card accounts to automatically download your bank feeds. Connecting your bank to QuickBooks Online allows you to automatically import transactions into your account saving you time and preventing data entry errors that can occur with manual entry.

If in the event you found out that there's an error with the downloaded bank feeds, you can always contact our Customer Care Team for further investigation.

You may want to check this article about how to Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online and how to Categorise and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online works.

If you have further concerns with banking feeds in QuickBooks Online, please drop a comment below. I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Have a nice day!