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Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online

SOLVEDby QuickBooks222Updated 12 hours ago

Learn how to add your bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online using Open Banking.

When you connect your online bank in QuickBooks, the transactions automatically download and categorise. This helps you to save time in updating your bank feeds. All you have to do is to review and approve them.

Once set up, you'll start seeing all your business finances in one place. Not to mention, you'll save time with synchronised solutions and be able to manage your cash flow with real-time data and future forecasting.

Note: Before you connect your bank account to QuickBooks Online, you'll need to make sure your bank supports Open Banking.

If you used bank feeds in QuickBooks Desktop, you'll need to connect your bank/credit card accounts again in QuickBooks Online for security reasons. If you plan to import your data from Desktop, follow these steps before you connect your bank:

  1. Find your most recently categorised transaction in QuickBooks Desktop.
  2. Make a note of the transaction date.
  3. Follow these steps to import your Desktop data. Note: It's important to do this before you connect your bank. Otherwise, your Desktop data will replace any downloaded bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.
  4. Your categorised transactions will copy from Desktop to Online. Uncategorised transactions won't copy over.
  5. To connect your bank to QuickBooks Online, continue reading this article. To avoid adding duplicate transactions, make sure to only pull transactions after the date in Step 2. You can do this by changing the transaction pull date while you're connecting your bank:

If you miss that step and download duplicate transactions by mistake, don't worry. You can exclude them from your books during the review process.

You can also find out more about how features and data move to QuickBooks Online.

Step 1: Connect a bank or credit card account

Connect your bank or credit card account so you don’t have to manually enter your transactions. You can also connect multiple businesses and personal bank accounts to keep your business information up to date in QuickBooks.

  1. Go to Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. If this is the first bank account you’ve set up, select Connect account. Or select Link account if you already created one.
  3. Search for your bank. You can connect most banks, even small credit unions. Note: If you can’t find your bank but still want to add your transactions to QuickBooks Online, you can also manually upload bank transactions.
  4. Sign into your bank by entering your banking username and password. Then select Continue.
  5. Read through the terms and conditions, select Agree, then follow the on-screen steps to connect. Your bank may require additional security checks. It may take a few minutes to connect.
  6. Select any accounts you want to connect, like, your savings, checking, or credit card. Then choose the matching account type from your chart of accounts in QuickBooks.

Select New to create a new bank or credit card account in your chart of accounts.

  • For new bank accounts:
    • In the Account Type ▼ dropdown, select Cash at bank and in hand
    • In the Detail Type, select Savings
    • Give the account a name and then select Save and Close.
  • For new credit card accounts: 
    • In the Account Type ▼ dropdown, select Credit Card for the Account type. 
    • Give the account a name and then select Save and Close.
  1. Select how far back you want to download transactions. Some banks let you download the last 90 days of transactions. Others can go back as far as 24 months.
  2. Select Connect.

Learn how to view and manage your bank consents in QuickBooks Online.

Notes:

  1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Chart of accounts (Take me there).
  2. Find the account you want to connect to.
  3. In the Action column, select the Account history ▼ dropdown. Then select Connect bank.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions to connect your bank to QuickBooks (these steps are the same as listed above).

Step 2: Download recent transactions

Refresh your bank feed to automatically download your recent bank transactions.

  1. Go to Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Select Update.

Step 3: Categorise downloaded transactions

Review and categorise the downloaded bank transactions to make sure that it is categorised right. This helps you to organise your charts of accounts accurately.

Step 4: Bank feed reauthorisation

Once you have connected your account to Open Banking, you will need to re-authorise the connection every 90 days. If your bank connection has expired and you are unable to re-authorise it, don't worry–we've got you covered. Follow the steps in this article to connect to your bank account.

Troubleshooting tips

Can't get connected? Don't worry, here's how you can fix common connection errors.

Open Banking is part of a new regulation that allows customers to share their financial information electronically, securely and with permission that is confirmed every 90 days. Open Banking offers enhanced speed, security and smart solutions to banking customers.

PSD2 is the Payment Services Directive, European wide legislation which sets out rules on how to retrieve your banking information. Open Banking is the standard which implements the PSD2 directive.

Intuit QuickBooks was one of the first companies to be registered as an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) back in February 2018. Our experience in financial data management has allowed us to work with key stakeholders in Open Banking to create a secure, reliable and simple experience for consumers. We are committed to delivering only the highest quality solution to our customers.

Yes, Open Banking is available to QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed customers.

For small business and self-employed

  • Fast, easy and secure set-up in less than one minute.
  • See all your business finances in one place.
  • Save time and hassle with synchronised solutions.
  • Manage your cash flow with real-time data and future forecasting.

For accountants and bookkeepers

  • Instant, up-to-the minute view of your clients' business finances.
  • Richer data and insights to provide your clients with advisory services.
  • Save time chasing clients for their statements.

For existing customers

  • Simple and seamless upgrade experience.
  • More accurate, reliable and uninterrupted bank feeds.
  • Real-time reconciliation to see an up-to-date view of all your business finances in one place.
  • Smarter cash flow management.

Open Banking puts you in control of your data, allowing you to share information more easily with companies like QuickBooks. To do this you will be redirected to sign in to your bank's website and give permission to allow the new connection. Once you give permission, we get your data into QuickBooks.

Yes, you can retrieve up to 24 month’s historical data with Open Banking when connecting your accounts for the first time. The amount of historical data that is available may differ between banks.

Transactions will automatically refresh in QuickBooks Online every 24 hours. If you select Update, QuickBooks will retrieve any new transactions that are available in real-time.

The answer has to do with how QuickBooks records transactions. If you exclude a transaction and then delete it from the excluded section, QuickBooks has no record of it. As a result, the transaction will reappear when you download bank transactions.

To stop this from happening, you need to exclude the transaction and leave it in the excluded section. You can also assign the transaction to a bank register so it becomes a recognised transaction.

Yes, you'll need to sign in and authenticate the new connection using your account holder credentials.

You consent to a connection for 90 days. After that, you'll be invited to re-authorise the connection in the Banking page in QuickBooks.

If your bank connection has expired and you are unable to re-authorise the connection, follow the steps in this article to connect to your bank account.

If you get an error while trying to connect your bank feed, here's how to fix common banking connection errors.

No, you won't have to re-authenticate the connection if your online banking password.

If you're an accountant, you won't be able to authorise a new bank feed connection on behalf of your client. The authorisation of the new feeds can only be done by the primary account holder.

There are a few reasons for this. Some banks may not be supported on Open Banking. This is a new system that allows financial data to be shared between different banks and software platforms. Not all banks have signed up for this yet, so QuickBooks can't always get the information it needs from them.

You may have recently received notice from us that your bank is no longer supported. This change is happening on a phased basis, so not all customers are affected at once. Check your inbox for an email sent from Intuit for more details.

If your bank doesn’t support Open Banking, you can continue to import your bank transactions using data uploads. This will allow you to use your financial data in the meantime, until your new connection is available.

It's hard to say for sure, but we're working closely with banks and financial institutions to make sure that as many banking products are compatible with Open Banking as possible. For updates on new Open Banking connections, refer to our article: Does my bank support Open Banking?

Payment accounts (current account products, credit card and some savings products) are generally available under Open Banking.

Non-payment accounts (for example, fixed term savings and other products where you can’t pay money in and out whenever you wish) are not supported on Open Banking.

If you see the error message 'there are no valid accounts to connect' when trying to connect your bank account to Open Banking, it means that you don't have any valid accounts available on Open Banking, or that you don't have have the appropriate account privileges with your bank to share your information. Contact your bank for more information.

If you see any other error message when trying to connect, here's how you can resolve them.

How Open Banking affects your accounts depends on which country your accounts are domiciled in. The Channel Islands fall outside of. the PSD2 regulation, and therefore your bank is unlikely to provide Open Banking feeds.

Gibraltar is within the PSD2 regulation and you should be able to keep your existing or new feeds using Open Banking. This means that you shouldn't have any problems accessing your account information via Open Banking.

Open Banking is a framework that allows financial institutions to provide bank feeds to third-party applications like QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed. This framework was implemented under EU regulations, but after Brexit, UK financial institutions will need to use a different framework.

This change may cause some disruptions for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed customers who use bank feeds. As a result, some customers may need to re-enter their credentials, but don't worry–you'll be prompted to do so when the time comes.

We are working hard to prevent any loss of connectivity for UK banks. If your account is impacted by Brexit, you'll be notified if your bank feed will be temporarily unavailable.

Unfortunately, you can't. Foreign currency transactions aren't converted to GBP in QuickBooks, so you'll only be able to link accounts that use the same currency.

You can, however, link accounts that use the same currency. For example, you could link a GBP account to a GBP COA, a USD account to a USD COA, Euro account to a Euro COA. Any other foreign transactions would come through as the account default.

We're here to help
If you've got any questions or need a hand fixing a connection error, linking or reconciling a bank account, let us know. Sign in to QuickBooks and start a discussion in our QuickBooks Community.

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