Which version of OFX is used by Quicken's (Version 5.16.1 (Build 516.33903.100)) import?

tim.rohrer

Quicken Mac (current version) includes an import option for OFX (Bank or Brokerage File).

Which protocol version(s) is/are supported? 

Dennis@1

Certainly all of these in the File>Import menu:

NotACPA

@tim.rohrer  There is only one version of OFX and only one version of QFX.

So, what are you really asking here? 

What difficulty are you encountering? 

What bank/card/brokerage are you having this difficulty with?

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

@tim.rohrer  There is only one version of OFX and only one version of QFX.

That isn't true, there are multiple OFX versions.  From 1.0 to 2.2.
And financial institutions have a tendency or not updating once they start using a given version.

Here is the header for 1.02.

OFXHEADER:100

DATA:OFXSGML

VERSION:102

...

Here is one for 2.00
<?OFX OFXHEADER="200" DATA="OFXSGML" VERSION="200" SECURITY="NONE" OLDFILEUID="NONE" NEWFILEUID="NONE" COMPRESSION="NONE" ENCODING="USASCII" CHARSET="1252"?>

But my guess at the real question behind the original questions:
"Why is Quicken Mac rejecting my OFX import?"

And the most likely answer is because it is in fact a OFX file not a QFX file (a QFX file has some fields in it that identify the "participating partner", a straight OFX files doesn't).  Or if it is a QFX file, it is for an non supported financial institution.

tim.rohrer

@Chris_QPW is correct in that the OFX specification has included a version 2 series for about three years now.

Chris_QPW said:

But my guess at the real question behind the original questions:
"Why is Quicken Mac rejecting my OFX import?"

My real question is precisely what I asked. I suppose I could ask it this way: Does Quicken support import of version 2 OFX? But then if the answer is no, I still have the question of what version is supported then? 1.02? 1.0? None? (in which case, why does it show up in the import menu?)

Dennis@1

Looks like 1.02 works. I don't know if that's the only version. Here's the header info from an Applecard OFX export that Quicken for Mac imported prior to AppleCard implementing QFX exports.

OFXHEADER:100

DATA:OFXSGML

VERSION:102

Chris_QPW

@tim.rohrer I'm a Windows user so I can't say for sure what Quicken Mac supports.  Which is the main reason I didn't post an answer on this thread when it first came out.

But I find it highly unlikely that Quicken Mac doesn't support at least 2.00.  And after that it "doesn't matter".

I base that answer on the simple fact there are many financial institutions using at least 2.00.  The example I showed above came from a downloaded QFX file from a financial institution.

And the reason I say after that it doesn't matter is because Quicken's "use case" hasn't changed in more than 20 years.  As such it will not be looking for any new features that might be in a later version.  And the only reason to worry about is the fact that the format change between 1.0 and 2.0 was to make the format more "XML like".  And of course that means that the QFX parser that that Quicken is using has to allow for this.  But other than this format change, Quicken isn't looking for any thing different than it would have 20 years ago.  And when they change/add the OFX specification the purposely "add" not "substract" features so that they stay backwards compatible.

Chris_QPW

And I think that maybe I need to fill in the history, because I do think you are back to "Why is Quicken Mac rejecting my OFX import?"

When Intuit, Microsoft, Checkfree, and the financial institutions got together and created the OFX standard, Intuit immediately made "minor" changes to add some new fields, and called it QFX.  So QFX has all the same versions as OFX.  And those are the "versions supported".

What they put in is some financial institution identification information.  This allows them to look up and see if the financial institution is on their "participating partners" list.  If the information is missing or not on their list the import is rejected (version number doesn't matter).

But there was a time where this possible was not in force.
And that was in Quicken Essentials for Mac and a few other versions of Mac that were derived from it, but as more work was put into Quicken Mac and it became closer to a product lots of people would use, they went back to the old policy.

These old versions would take "straight" OFX files and import them.  Note that Quicken 2007 for Mac had the same policy to only allow QFX files.  And Quicken Windows has never changed its policy.

I believe what really happened is that the Mac developers for Quicken Essentials for Mac either "went rouge" or just forgot to put in the check for "participating partners".  And once it was out there, and Quicken Essentials was pretty much a flop and a money loss for Intuit, I guess they decided to not change the policy at that time.

So that brings us back to why there is an OFX on the import menu item, and why it allows a OFX type file.  They probably didn't remove the type because there might be people with "OFX file types with QFX information" in them.  But make no mistake the contents of the OFX file has to really be a QFX file and have the fields for the "participating partners" in it of Quicken Mac or will reject importing it.

tim.rohrer

I looked at several .qfx files from three of my institutions this morning, and will look at more this week. Both were v1.02. One imported, one didn't (I haven't tried the third) even though they are all three ascii and described internally as OFX formats. I have not found reference to a "participating partner" but will look closer.

All three of these institutions work using Direct Connect, so if the fact these files do or do not import is academic. My goal lies elsewhere. 

I have not found any examples from my institutions that use v2 of the standard, so I'll focus in on v1.02 after confirming with a few more tests.

It would be nice to know if v2 is truly supported, but I suspect at this point, v1.02 will suffice.

Thanks for the convo. 

Chris_QPW

For "participating partner" think "Intuit".
And this list will help:
https://ofx-prod-filist.intuit.com/qm2400/data/fidir.txt