I downloaded transactions from my american express card. But the amounts are listed under "receive" instead of the expense column.

Let me help you in changing the amounts under Received to Spent/Expenses in the Banking Feed, @ffbgrowth. 

Those transactions were transmitted to QuickBooks by your financial institution, and QuickBooks doesn't have control over them. With this, I'd suggest deleting the transactions and importing them in QBO to correct the listing.  

Let's exclude first, so you have an option to delete it. Here's how:

1. Go the Banking page, then click the For Review tab. 
2. Put a check-mark to those transactions. 
3. Click the Batch Actions drop-down menu, and choose to Exclude Selected.

       4. Go to the Excluded tab.

       5. Check the boxes of the excluded transactions, then hit Delete on the upper side. 

After that, you can now import the data. QuickBooks Online uses 2 CSV template formats the 3 and 4 Columns. If you want to use the 3-Column format, make sure the expense amount is negative. On the other hand, the deposit amount is under the Debit column. For the detailed instructions and sample screenshots, check out this article: Import bank transactions using Excel CSV files. 

Once the transaction is the correct column, you can now categorize them. Here's an article for the complete steps:  Download, match, and categorize your bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

I've also included an article you can read to learn more about reconciling bank and credit cards in QBO: Reconcile an account.

Let me know if you have more questions about this. I'll be happy to help you some more.