welcome to the Fit small business
QuickBooks Online training course in
this lesson we're going to cover how to
import banking transactions into
quickbooks online to follow along with
me log in to your quickbooks online
account now or click the link below this
video for a free 30-day trial of
quickbooks online you can also click
this link to access our full quickbooks
online course and other helpful
resources let's get started one of the
many benefits of quickbooks online is
that you can save a lot of time by
automatically downloading your banking
transactions into quickbooks instead of
manually inputting each transaction
while most big banks like Bank of
America allow you to quickly and easily
connect to QuickBooks some of the
smaller banks and credit unions do not
have that capability at fit small
business we have a Bank of America
account that we sync up with QuickBooks
if you are interested in opening a
business checking account we recommend
you check out Bank of America click this
link for more information if you don't
have a business bank account and you're
using a personal bank account then I
recommend getting a separate bank
account for your business as soon as
possible and then connect it to
QuickBooks it is always best practice
from an accounting and tax standpoint to
keep business activities completely
separate from personal for the purposes
of this video we will use a fictitious
company called paul's plumbing as you
view this video think about how the
information might differ for your
business in order to connect your bank
account to QuickBooks you will need your
online banking user ID and password to
log in to your bank account to begin
after you sign into your QuickBooks
Online account from the left menu bar
click on transactions and then banking
if this is the first time you're
connecting a bank account to QuickBooks
you won't see this screen instead you
will see the next screen which we will
which will allow you to search for your
bank
click on the blue Add Account button and
in this field you can type your bank
name in the search box or you can select
from the list of bank's right below the
search box Paul wants to set up his
checking account at Bank of America if
you are unable to locate your bank then
you will need to import your banking
term
actions using a CSV format which we will
cover later in this lesson go ahead and
enter your user ID and password that you
normally use to access your bank account
and click the login button depending on
your internet connection and the number
of accounts that you have it may take a
few minutes for QuickBooks to connect to
your bank once it does you should see a
screen similar to this one that will
list all of your accounts that you have
at the same you want to place a
checkmark in the first column next to
each account that you would like to
connect to QuickBooks next we want to go
ahead and select the QuickBooks account
that you want to link this bank account
to if you have not set up the account in
QuickBooks yet go ahead and click add
new and we'll go ahead and set up the
account in QuickBooks this is the
account setup window with the fields
that we need to complete the first field
is the account type here we want to
select the type of account that we are
downloading transactions for typically
this is going to be either a bank
account or credit card we're going to go
ahead and set up a checking account so
we will select bank detail type here you
want to provide more information on the
type of bank account since we're setting
up a checking account we'll select
checking and in the name field you want
to enter your bank name the type of
account checking and then you want to
also include the last four digits of the
account number this will allow you to
easily tell one bank account from
another when you are writing checks and
reconciling the account double check to
make sure that you have made all the
selections in the fields and when you're
ready go ahead and click the save and
close button back on this next screen
now you can see that we've got our new
Bank of America checking account that we
set up in QuickBooks and connecting to
this Bank of America checking account
before you click the connect button you
always want to double check to make sure
that you do not select any accounts that
you do not want to keep track of in
QuickBooks for example personal accounts
once we click connect all transactions
will be downloaded into QuickBooks
unfortunately there is no automatic undo
button later on if you find out that the
accidentally
selected an account that you do
not want connected to QuickBooks then
you will need to manually delete all of
those transactions before you can delete
the account from QuickBooks depending on
the number of accounts you've selected
and the date range this process could
take a while to complete once the
transactions have successfully
downloaded into QuickBooks you should
see a message that says that we have
successfully downloaded your
transactions like this one here once you
see that we are ready to go ahead and
click the let's go button in the lower
right hand corner which will take us to
a page where we can actually review the
transactions that downloaded here in the
banking center we are able to see a tab
that says for review all of the
transactions that have downloaded will
appear on the fuel review tab to learn
how to manage making transactions after
they are downloaded watch our video
tutorial on how do I manage downloaded
banking transactions to add another
account just click the blue add account
button here if you have bank accounts at
multiple banks that you want to track in
QuickBooks then you will need to repeat
this process for each Bank where you
have business accounts that you want to
track in QuickBooks that's it for how to
automatically connect the bank account
to QuickBooks Online when to import
banking transactions using a CSV file if
you were not able to automatically
connect your bank account to QuickBooks
or if you need to download more than 90
days of banking transactions then it is
important for you to understand how to
import your banking transactions using
an Excel format called CSV to obtain
this type of file log in to your bank
account and go to the section where you
can download transactions or bank
statements most likely you will have the
option to download your transactions in
multiple formats if you don't see either
of these options CSV or qbo then contact
your bank let them know that you would
like to download your banking
transactions into QuickBooks and you
would like to know how to do that from
their website to begin import go ahead
and click the drop down arrow to the
right of the update button and select
File upload on the next screen you want
to browse to the location where you have
saved the import file on your computer
so go ahead and click the Browse button
once you locate the file you want to go
ahead and click on that file and then
you want to click open and then we'll go
ahead and select next on this next
screen we want to go ahead and select
the QuickBooks account that we want to
link to this bank account since we've
already set up the account in the
previous lesson we'll go ahead and
select Bank of America checking here and
click Next
from this screen what we want to do is
we want to map the quickbooks online
fields with the fields from the bank
statement file and so what we'll do is
we'll go in and we will let QuickBooks
know what column the data appears in the
file that we want to import the data
from so the first item that we want to
take care of is if your CSV file has a
header row make sure to check the box at
the top left of this screen let's go
ahead and map our fields the first field
is the date field so from the drop down
we want to select the column in the
spreadsheet that has the date
information so it looks like that will
be column one here we also have the
option to select a date format so we'll
make that selection the next field is
the description so the description field
in the spreadsheet looks like that's
going to be column two so we'll go ahead
and select that
and then the last field is the amount
field and so we'll go ahead and select
column six where we have the dollar
amount in the field here now for dollar
amount bank files typically have one
column which will have positive numbers
and negative numbers negative numbers
typically represent deposits and the
positive numbers typically represent
withdrawals and
you have to tell QuickBooks if your file
has one column or two column with the
positive and negative numbers in it so
for this particular file our file has
two columns so we definitely will make
that selection and then once we do that
we'll have to let QuickBooks know which
column has the positive numbers in it
and which column has the negative
numbers in it and once we've done that
we can click Next on this screen
QuickBooks is showing us a list of the
transactions that are ready to import so
it's important to make sure that you
review this and make sure that all the
transactions that you expect to import
into QuickBooks are selected here it's
also important for you to verify that
the information is correct is the date
does the date column show dates does the
description column show description does
the amount column show amount here if at
any point in time information is not
correct or you need to make changes you
can go back and do so by clicking the
back button but if you are happy with
the selections you can click Next and
QuickBooks will let you know how many
transactions will be imported so here as
you can see we will import a total of
223 transactions that's quite a bit of
transactions to import first time around
so my suggestion is you want to import a
small batch of transactions at first so
let's go back and let's remove the check
mark for all transactions and for this
particular example we will just import
all of the transactions for the month of
January so that way if anything goes
wrong or information doesn't appear in
the right places we've got a smaller
group of transactions to correct and so
we'll go ahead and make those selections
and then we'll click Next again and this
time around we've got 26 transactions so
much better so we are happy with that go
ahead and click yes and the transactions
will import into QuickBooks
and once that happens we will get a
message that says we have been
successful fantastic so we are ready to
click the let's go button and this will
take us back to the banking center where
we can actually review the transactions
on the for review tab that have been
imported to learn how to manage
downloaded transactions please watch our
video tutorial on how to manage banking
transactions in QuickBooks if you'd like
to add another account just click the
blue button up here at the top or if
you'd like to import a new file with
additional transactions click the file
upload option here that's it for today
that wraps up the section on how to
import banking transactions into
quickbooks online to access this course
or any of the others in the series just
click this link for a free 30-day trial
of QuickBooks Online click the links
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