Trouble with American Express connection to Quickbooks Online

Thanks for reaching out to the Community, @COrtiz.

I have some information to share with you that can help troubleshoot the connection between American Express and QuickBooks Online.

When you try to download transactions, do you still encounter the Error 105? If so, we can perform a manual update to resolve the connection issue. 
Here’s how:

1. Select Banking from the left menu.
2. On the Banking page, click Update.

You may take a look at this article for more information: How to fix banking error 102 and 105.

When it comes to the company file that has two American Express credit cards, you can set up one of them to be the parent account, then the other as a sub-account. This way, you can connect them together in QuickBooks Online. 

You can create a new parent account and add a sub-account by following the steps provided in this article: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Reports-and-accounting/How-to-create-a-new-parent-account-or....

Make sure the two accounts are of the same category type for this process to be successful. You may create up to five levels of accounts, one as the parent with four subs.

For more information about setting up bank or credit card sub-account in QBO, refer to this article: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Banking-and-bank-feeds/About-bank-or-credit-card-sub-account....

That should be it. Please know you can always find me here for all of your QuickBooks needs, I want to ensure your success. Thanks for reaching out and enjoy the rest of the week.

Amex is still not syncing.  Up through February the sync worked fine.  Randomly stopped working?

Hello there, @dso0216.

This issue is recently reported and already closed. But we've got an update from AMEX and I'd be glad to share it with you.

American Express informed us that it can take up to 10 days for transactions to sync with QBO. However, if the transactions occurred over 10 days ago, I recommend scheduling a callback with our QuickBooks Customer support so they can open a new investigation about the issue.

Here's how you can schedule a callback:

1. Log in to your QuickBooks account.
2. Click on Help.
3. Choose Contact Us.

If you have additional questions about syncing AMEX transactions, leave me a comment. I'll be right to answer them for you.

Thank you I will do that.  It's been over 10 days.

Multiple creditcard users - one account Quickbooks Online questions.

1. For CHASE: I had to create the dummy PARENT account  and then put the two credit card holder accounts as SUBaccounts under the PARENT. I wish both don't show up on the Banking page, because it;s confusing to reconcile.. but have spent HOURS and HOURS trying to figure out to have just the one Chase account on there and cannot figure out how to keep it clean. 

2. AMEX Credit cards.. I have been reading that I don't need to do the PARENT/Sub accounts for Amex but when syncing the Amex cards, the creditcards are not connecting into one account. And when I tried to do the PARENT / subparent thing with Amex.. everything is a mess. I get double transactions. I'm afraid I have made a mess of my Quickbooks online account.

I can't find this "American Express Credit Card(US) - Parent Accounts" option from American Express that is discussed over the internet in a few places... like here: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/mobile-and-apps/connect-your-american-express-busi...

I am very upset with Quickbooks and tend to fight with it all the time. My time is precious and Quickbooks has killed it.  It's 2020, I wish Quickbooks could be as smart as Apple or Microsoft programming. 

Sorry to vent. Quickbooks is causing some serious depression.

Hello there, @lfeinbergdesign

I would also like to organize things, especially in dealing with digital transactions. I wouldn't want my register to look messy when I reconcile them, too. I'll share additional information about connecting your account into QuickBooks.

If the transactions download to one account, connect only the parent account. If the transactions download to the individual accounts, you only connect the subaccounts. Some banks may show the overall bank balance at each subaccount level. This is because the bank provides us with a static balance of the entire account, not the balance of each subaccount.

When it’s time to reconcile your CHASE account, you only need to reconcile the parent account because all transactions in the subaccounts roll up into it.

Also, for your AMEX credit card, as my colleague mentioned above, it will take up to 10 days for transactions to sync with QBO. 

However, if you want to connect each of your individual AMEX credit card and track them separately, you can connect each card one at a time. Or if you want to handle everything in one main account connect to the American Express Credit Card(US) - Parent Account. This parent account automatically downloads all the transactions from your different cards.

Also, for the double transactions, you can exclude it from the transactions downloaded from your bank or financial institution.

Here's how: 

1. Go to Banking.
2. On the Banking page, select the For Review tab.
3. Select the checkboxes of the transactions to exclude.
4. From the Batch actions drop-down, choose Exclude Selected.

Once the transactions are listed on the Excluded tab it will not track or reported as part of your business finances and don't appear in any associated account registers or reports.

For more information, you can refer to these articles:

• About bank or credit card subaccount setup
• Connect your American Express Business account to QuickBooks Online
• Exclude expenses from downloaded bank transactions

After you connect your accounts, you're ready to add and match the downloaded transactions.

Please know you can always leave a comment below if you have any questions about bank transactions. Take care and wishing you the best!

I didn't have time to read the other replies you received but I was having the same issues several weeks ago. After WEEKS of not being able to connect AMEX, HOURS on the phone, and QB support unable to resolve the issue... I finally figured it out.  Hope this helps!  (BTW... I'm copy and pasting from my community post)

For anyone having the same issues as me.  After getting in touch with someone who finally knew what he was doing with QBO, he found and resolved the issue I've been dealing with for the past 3 weeks.

FOR ACCOUNTANTS

If you're having trouble logging into AMEX for a client, go to YOUR business QB home page (not theirs) and click on the APPS tab on the lefthand side of your screen.  Next, select the "Clients Apps" tab at the top of the screen.  Under the client you're having issues for, look for the American Express App.  Click the AMEX app.  See who the app was "Connected by".  In my case, it said it was connected by: Others which meant my client tried to connect it, before contacting me.  Once I found that out, I had to use her QB login and password to log into her company account (as a user and not as an accountant).  I then followed the steps listed below and BOOM!  We're back up and running again!

FOR BUSINESSES

If you're having trouble connecting your AMEX bank feed to QB, click on APPS in the toolbar to the left of your page.  Look for the American Express App.  On the AMEX app, select the drop down menu on the ACTIONS button and then select launch.  Follow the instructions and you're good to go!

For AMEX, the difference between the "Business Card-OPEN" option and the "Personal or Corporate Card" option when connecting the account is this:

• The Business Card-OPEN is actually an app (I didn't know this) so your transactions download automatically.  You must enroll to use this free option.  Clicking the "Update" tab in the banking screen will not download additional charges/payments in the AMEX bank feed.
• With the Personal or Corporate Card option, you must click the "Update" button to download new charges/payments.

Yes, i am having this same issue going back to September/October 2019.  I have three different Amex Accounts  (Platinum, Gold, and Cash Back), with one employee under each card (So 6 cards total, three in my name and three in my employees names).  For each of the accounts, only my charges are importing into QB, not the employee charges.  It's incredibly frustrating.  I have found that if you login to Amex, and download the transactions into a QBX file, and then upload them into QB, both my card and employees cards transaction data will work its way into QB, but it's a painful process and Amex says they will "discontinue" the ability to download after May 1, 2020....I hope the get this figured out because I agree this is awful.

It seems that QB has now captured enough market share where they don't actually care about proper functionality.  QB online continues to lag behind QB desktop, and yet the price seems to increase about 10-15% every six months...i guess that's how they (Intuit) pay for those super bowl turbo tax ads hah.