Import CSV files?

chris gralapp

I am moving to a bank that does not support QFX files, only CSV files. How can I enter those into my Quicken Deluxe?

Sherlock

You may want to consider using ImportQIF.

chris gralapp

Does anyone use ImportQIF with Quicken Subscription? Is it a 'set-it-and-forget-it' thing, or do I need to jump through hoops every time I go to do my bookkeeping? I am worried about a third party app that might or might not be around in a few years.

chris gralapp

[Removed - Solicitation]

splasher

I use it.  After setting up, you download the CSV, if you have set Windows to open the CSV with ImportQIF, it pops up, you select the account (established during setup) you want, it reads the CSV, converts it into a QIF file and imports it automatically.

Quicken does not do anything but import the file, but ImportQIF prevents duplicates.

I works great for me.

Try it, it is free.

chris gralapp

Splasher, this is great news! I am hovering between staying with Bank of America (which I am increasingly disenchanted with, and is closing its branch in our little town--but has really good Quicken integration), and going with a small local bank with great community feeling, and is in walking distance for me, and very nice people who actually want my business. If ImportQIF can help bridge the gap, that helps me leave BofA!

chris gralapp

So, just so I know, is it better to import as QIF or QFX? Which is easier? I am no techno genius, I just want it to work and not tinker under the hood...!

splasher

For you to be able to import a .QFX file, the FI needs to be a participating Quicken partner, so to import a converted QFX file into your account in Quicken, you would have to fake the FI, so if someone (maybe the executor of your estate) looked at Quicken they would not know where that account really was.
The downside to importing a QIF is that Quicken won't do renaming or use memorized payees or matching to existing manually entered transactions.
But ImportQIF does do renaming and it can assign a category for a payee based on your mapping.
I use it for my BJs CC and I don't pre-enter any transactions manually in it.  When I create the payment from checking to that account in checking, I leave the category blank so that Quicken does not generate the matching transfer transaction.  That might seem odd, but when I later download the payment transaction from BJs, Quicken will pop and ask if it matches the transaction in checking to which I respond Yes and Quicken then connects the two transactions as a transfer.  If I had entered the category causing the transfer, there would be a double payment in the BJs account. 

chris gralapp

Sorry, I'm lost--what is BJs CC?

Sherlock

chris gralapp said:

Sorry, I'm lost--what is BJs CC?

BJ's CC is a wholesale club credit card: https://www.bjs.com/cobranded/perksLanding

volvogirl

CC means credit card.  He must have a credit card for BJs.   Don't know who they are.  The only BJs I know is a restaurant.   

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth I looked at that other converter and it seems quite nice.  And if one could only get their transactions in PDF format, it looks like they have a way to do that.

chris gralapp said:

Does anyone use ImportQIF with Quicken Subscription? Is it a 'set-it-and-forget-it' thing, or do I need to jump through hoops every time I go to do my bookkeeping? I am worried about a third party app that might or might not be around in a few years.

I really don’t see this as a concern.  Unlike deciding on if to use Quicken or another programs where the conversion between the two might be hard or impossible, with a CSV to QIF/QFX converter once the transactions have been converted and imported into Quicken you are done with them.  So if the program isn’t around later you just find another that does it.  If all CSV to QIF/QFX programs are gone (not likely) then you have a problem, but not if just one  stops working for you.

I would certainly be more concerned if Quicken Inc would be around in the future.

Note ImportQIF is my program.

I actually don’t use it, I have made sure that my financial institutions are supported by Direct Connect.
I think though that if I did have to use it, I would convert to QFX as long as I using a supported version of Quicken.  If the only downloading I was doing was for an unsupported financial institution I probably would go with Quicken 2017 and use QIF (Quicken 2017 allows for using memorised payees to fill in categories, and matching existing transactions).  QFX is only usable on a supported version of Quicken.

I have worked around most of the limitations of the QIF importing with the “Map” features in ImportQIF.  The one thing I can’t workaround is matching existing transactions.

For importing transactions it is sort of a toss up between QIF and QFX, but there are use cases where one format wins out over the other.  QIF allows for categories, transfers, splits, in the transactions, QFX doesn’t.  So for people that are using a spreadsheet and want to get those transactions into Quicken, QIF is better.

The one thing I would look at if I was in need of a converter and looking at the other program and was importing a QIF is that it too allows for working around the lack of renaming rules, and mapping the payee to categories.  

I would also see if it will invoke Quicken’s menus to do the import or if you have to do a conversion and then do go into Quicken and go through the menus to import that QIF file.  It isn’t a real big deal, but saves several steps.  Note for a QFX file you (or the conversion program) can just open it and it will open in Quicken and import, but that isn’t true for QIF files, you have to go through the menus (or at least you had to the last time I tested which was a while ago now).

chris gralapp

Dear @Chris_QPW, I would like to speak with you and ask some questions about your ImportQIF program--can you contact me at [Removed-Personal Information]

splasher

chris gralapp said:

Dear @Chris_QPW, I would like to speak with you and ask some questions about your ImportQIF program--can you contact me at [Removed-Personal Information]

I suggest you contact Chris thru the links on his website,  don't expect him to come to you.  He is VERY good about responding, describe your issue thoroughly during the first contact.