Don't edit external links that are intended to help the Community

Tom Scott

Those of us who have Schwab investment accounts have been without reliable downloads since the end of November. Someone asked if anyone knew about software that converts downloaded transaction csv files to qif files that could be imported and provided a link to that software. I had used that in the past and I found the link to the most recent version, downloaded it spent 2 hours of figuring out how to make it work. I shared the link and the lessons learned with the thread. Today I found that the link was removed as a Solicitation. A "solicitation" that should be rejected is for a competing product. A link to a product that makes Quicken more useful to the users that you don't make yourself should not be considered a solicitation.

jacobs

@Tom Scott The moderators should use a different word than "solicitation" when they remove info from posts; they don't allow discussion of any competing or third party products on this site, period. It doesn't matter whether you want to compare features between Quicken or competing personal finance products, or suggest people buy another product, or talking about third-party products to use with Quicken.

The product you're talking about likely violates Quicken's terms of service, because Quicken and/or Intuit receive revenue from financial institutions for using Intuit's connectivity services, and products which convert .csv or .qif files into .qxf files Quicken can import spoof FI ID numbers to trick Quicken into accepting the transactions. 

I'm a fellow Quicken user and don't speak for the company. I understand that you're just trying to work around problems you're having with Schwab imports into Quicken and feel it's justified; I'm, only offering an explanation why they don't allow such products to be discussed on their forum.

DaveManz

Well, of course, Quicken will continue thinking of its bottom line rather than what is helpful to its customers. (The concept of a customer is fading fast, isn't it?)

I too have spent some time tweaking on the CSV exported from my bank's online interface. I will say that Quicken doesn't help when importing the CSV, as they warn that the format of the CSV file must match "exactly" the header Quicken shows, and yet, to get the CSV imported one needs to combine the FI Payee and Debit/Credit columns on one column and then add a blank column just prior to the Category column in order for Quicken to find the Account data in the sixth column and the Amount data in the fourth column. Add to that the failure of Quicken's import process from treating commas in numbers ($1,740.30) within quote-delimited fields as marking a new column.

Adding insult to injury, Quicken began at the end of November throwing up the bogus error message ("Unable to verify Financial info for this download, try again later") when imports of QFX files were tried. No amount of time was going to cure the failure and Quicken was aware of that.

The kicker; this move to OFX exchanges has not been smooth, has created much grief for users as well as their FI's, and is much less secure than downloading a QIF (or now a CSV) file from your FI. But Quicken/Intuit seems to be working hard to prevent users from using this more-secure method….. (Why no more QIF option?)

I've attached a screen shot of a properly formed CSV that Quicken does import without complaint….. Finally.

CSV format for Quicken import.png

jacobs

@DaveManz I think you have some incorrect perceptions. First, OFX and QFX are essentially the same thing; the QFX variation involves the insertion of a single line of text to identify the financial institution. Intuit implemented this 20 years ago, because they wanted to maintain control over what financial institutions were registered with them in order to pursue problems and fixes. Quicken has not made a switch from QFX to OFX files for importing.

You also seem to be confusing and conflating some of the changes which have been occurring with connectivity from Quicken to financial institutions. More and more financial institutions have been switching away from the original EWC protocol, where Quicken stores a user's login credentials to a financial institution and provides them in order to log in as the user in order to download transactions. The newer standard the financial industry has been moving to is FDX, which in Quicken is called EWC+. It uses a similar transaction syntax, but the login method is changed to an API rather than Quicken presenting the user's username and password. This process (called OAuth) takes you to your financial institution's website to login and authorize access; the bank then provides Quicken a secure, rotating, and encrypted token to identify the customer. Financial institutions feel this system is more secure because the third-party software like Quicken isn't storing user login information.

QIF, the older transaction file format, was dropped at the same time because it lacked needed features which were part of the OFX( QFX) standard. Among other things, QIF doesn't have functionality to prevent importing the same transactions multiple times, leading to duplicates. (OFX/QFX added the Financial Institution Transaction ID number, or FITID, so that every transaction is assigned a unique number which enables Quicken to know whether it is a new or duplicate transaction.) I'm not a QIF expert, so others may chime in here, but I believe other factors involved reconciling imported data with account balances, lack of multi-currency tracking and different date formats, and more. In any case, your labeling of QIF as "more secure" than OFX is simply incorrect.

As for CSV, Quicken windows and more recently Quicken Mac officially allow importing of CSV transaction files. But the problem with CSV exports from financial institutions is that there's no standard for what columns were are, how they are labeled, etc. That's why it's a nightmare for Quicken to provide a general CSV import tool; they allow it, but the burden is on the user to manipulate a bank's export format into the format Quicken will import. It works, and can be useful for a financial institution with no other means of importing data into Quicken, but there are generally better options available.

Chris_QPW

To add to what @jacobs said this statement is also false:

Adding insult to injury, Quicken began at the end of November throwing up the bogus error message ("Unable to verify Financial info for this download, try again later") when imports of QFX files were tried. No amount of time was going to cure the failure and Quicken was aware of that.

Two different issues might have given this impression.

The first is that some financial institutions have dropped support for importing QFX files, like BofA when they went to EWC+, but were sloppy and didn't remove the actual download of the QFX file on their website (from what I have been told BofA eventually did remove the downloading of a QFX file). But they certainly told Quicken Inc's aggregator Intuit to change the fidir.txt that tells Quicken which connection methods the financial institution wants to support and Quicken has to adhere to that, and to remove Web Connect/QFX files.

The second problem was that one of the releases of Quicken Windows has a bug that cause problems importing a QFX file. It manifested as requesting to reinstall Quicken. Importing the QFX file through menus or uninstalling and reinstalling worked as workarounds.

DaveManz

Well, thanks, Jacob explaining my conflating OFX with FDX and OAuth2. Thanks to Chris_QPW for more info on how EWC+ has come to be the standard for downloads from FI's.

Those explanations still come up short to explain why Quicken Classic continued to tell users, when importing QFX files, that their FI, valid on 11/28/25 was not valid on 12/2/25 and that the user should "Try again later". Since three companies were involved (Quicken, Intuit and BofA) during this transition period, it is not surprising that mixed messages were presented to the customers….. who just wanted to import a download and get on with business.

As for which import file/method is more secure, it has to be CSV files, since the online transaction does not involve Quicken or Intuit; just a single verified login to the FI from the customer. No men in the middle to suffer in-house security breaches. Sadly, as Jacob alludes to, importing CSV files into Quicken Classic is not without a new set of challenges, not the least of which is that during import Quicken displays a dialog box showing an "exact" but incorrect header arrangement which leads to further frustration of the customer, now needing to figure out what "exactly" the arrangement of the columns must be to succeed in importing the CSV. (Quicken does have a support file concerning "Importing …CSV" that does have the column arrangement correct.) And not be be done with complicating the customer's life, and despite what Quicken support asserts, any amounts containing commas get interpreted during CSV import as a new field marker, throwing off the import.

Having said that, thanks to Chris_QPW's previous explanation of how EWC+ works, I can see that EWC+ transactions have the potential to be more secure than QFX…… but not more secure than a direct one-on-one verified connection and download from the FI to its customer.

It reminds me of how Micro$oft's single-login method has made MS's life easier, but put its customers at higher risk of unauthorized access due to a single password being used across an ever-widening landscape of products and services. Again, the idea of customers being just that (and not a product to be marketed) is fading from the business environment.

After 40 years of using Quicken, I am wondering, now that I have to clear my download transactions manually, whether it is time to say good bye. On the upside, forced to figure out how to get a CSV file to import into Quicken Classic, I have also found that using PowerGREP I can semi-automate the assignment of category, memo and tag fields prior to import. So, then I'll save some time better put to clearing transactions after import.

DaveManz

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20533469#Comment_20533469

Well, Chris_QPW, you did not acknowledge the principle problem suffered by at least Quicken Classic customers at the start of Dec 2025; "Try again later" when later was never to come. Quicken, Intuit and BofA were not on the same page during this transitions to EWC+ and none seemed the least bit concerned about the worry it caused customers who tried again and again to get a QFX download process, that worked just a week before, to work again.

Unfortunate. Especially since I count 141 messages in the Community Support related to QFX as of Dec 1, 2025. Have not taken the time to see how many of those inquires are still hanging, but I have seen a couple as recently as Jan 19th, 2026 having not yet received a response.

Chris_QPW

"Unable to verify Financial info for this download, try again later"

Those explanations still come up short to explain why Quicken Classic continued to tell users, when importing QFX files, that their FI, valid on 11/28/25 was not valid on 12/2/25 and that the user should "Try again later". Since three companies were involved (Quicken, Intuit and BofA) during this transition period, it is not surprising that mixed messages were presented to the customers….. who just wanted to import a download and get on with business.

Without seeing the code and as such all the possible ways that it can fail, I really can't say if "try again later" is just plain wrong or if there is something I don't understand, or more of a "Hope".

By the time Quicken is checking the file that Intuit provided it is local. So, short of a bug in Quicken's code for this (which most likely would affect all QFX imports and not Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows at the same time) the problem could be that Intuit made an improper change to the file, and when that is discovered, it hopefully gets fixed. Other than that, if the financial institution tells Intuit to disable a given connection method than clearly it going to not be possible to "try again later" unless the financial institution changes its mind.

As for security and easy of downloading transactions. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Let's start with the fact that our government has never enforced any standard on the financial institutions. In the EU they are required to use either OFX or another standard that I forget or both. When left open like that you get a mishmash of people doing different things. When Intuit, Microsoft, Check Free, and "the financial institutions" got together and created the OFX standard, the next thing Intuit did is put in a new record to allow them to check for "participating partners". This had some plus and minus. That allowed them to charge for support from the financial institutions, which in turn meant fewer would adopt it, but it also meant they didn't get out of the business as soon as Microsoft did.

Direct Connect is "full OFX" where Quicken is talking directly to a OFX server at the financial institution over the same protocol as your web browser. The only "insecurity" to it would be the username and password on your machine (In Quicken Windows in the encrypted Password Vault, and on Quicken Mac in the Mac keychain). (I will get back to this in a bit). "Full OFX" a request is sent and the reply is the transaction information.

An OFX/QFX file is just the reply in file format. Clearly this is slightly more "secure" than full OFX, because of the "lack of storing the username/password", but I will remind you that you had to log into your financial institution to get it and if your machine is compromised, I don't think there is much difference in the "security".

And OFX/QFX file is tons better than a CSV file. The only thing standardized about a CSV file is how it is formatted on a line. The OFX standard spells out exactly what every field should be. And another weakness that people might not consider of a CSV file in Quicken is just the fact that Quicken has had support for QFX files for decades, plenty of time to work out all the bugs. They will have to do the same for CSV even using a fixed format. And it might be great for you and a few others that have tools to change CSV files to fit that format, but that clearly isn't what the average person is capable of. Do you know the original purpose of ImportQIF? Way back in 2004 Intuit put in "GUI block" where you could only select asset and liability accounts for QIF imports, to try to block people from using QIF and switch to QFX. But it was found that if you add the account name and type to the top of the QIF file it would import into the correct account. There is a FAQ on doing that. But even that was a pain enough that people didn't want/or couldn't figure out. So, ImportQIF was created to add that information for them. ImportQIF expanded in purpose from that.

Now we get to Express Web Connect. Why that name? Well Intuit called downloading of a QFX file and importing that "Web Connect", as in the financial institution created the QFX file (the OFX response with the transaction information) so when only about 4,500 financial institutions implemented full OFX servers but more implemented "Web Connect" they decided to "hack" and have their servers log into the financial institution's website and get that QFX file and import it. "Express" is this hack. That then wasn't enough, so they then made agreements with the financial institutions of what format they might provide and then they would do the same hack plus a conversion to the QFX format that Quicken needed. And the "aggregators" were born. Because of course Intuit wasn't the only one interested in doing this.

That brings us to FDX/Express Web Connect +. The main things to understand about FDX is that the protocol for logging in is an OAuth2 rotating security token (no username and password), which is very secure. But noted that is only between the Intuit server and the financial institution, but at least the usernames and passwords are now off of the "aggregators". FDX is a standard like OFX (probably very close to the same) but it isn't "open" you have to sign a non-disclosure just to look at it. And of course, its biggest weakness is that you have so many hands in the pot. That and it will face the same thing that doomed OFX, not all the financial institutions will adopt it.

But one might argue that OFX/Direct Connect is still using usernames and passwords so FDX is superior. But that is by choice. The OFX standard didn't stand still, and the latest versions do support the same OAuth2 rotating security tokens, but you have financial institutions that haven't even upgraded their version of OFX since the time it was first released. And Quicken has never got the newest version support.

Chris_QPW

To directly address BofA, Quicken Inc didn't leave people hanging, if they would read the announcements:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7966609/9-30-25-bank-of-america-ofx-discontinued

Yes, the "try again" is wrong in this case, but like I said above, I can't know if there are other situations where that comment makes sense. It is a generic message and can't be taken as "here are the steps to fix your problem".

BK

@DaveManz , Maybe I am misinterpreting - where you seem to be under the impression that BofA transitioned to EWC+ just this last Dec? It was actually a few years ago, 2021-2022 maybe, where they transitioned from EWC to EWC+. Then they discontinued Direct Connect (for those who where grand-fathered) and Web Connect (QFX) in Sep.

I can see that perhaps this announcement may give such impression but all it is saying is that BofA's only remaining online connection method is EWC+ (and of course .csv).

DaveManz

Well, BK, my downloads and imports of QFX files from BofA were successful until Nov 25th, 2025. Next attempt shortly after the start of December was my first "recent" experience with "Try again later" show-stopper error. Again, not much effort or coordination took place between Quicken, Intuit and BofA to give users fair warning before the plug was pulled. In fact, since the QFX download option remained available at BofA for another two or three weeks in December, it seems that BofA was not well informed about the plan, either.

Especially lame was the subsequent support message that Quicken was going to help share our FI login and password with the bank, without also explaining that it was a Quicken directed login to our FI that would authorize the FI to share a randomized token with Intuit to allow subsequent downloads to happen. The vagueness of the steps easily gave the impression that Quicken/Intuit were now going to be in possession of user passwords. Chris_QPW better explained how the OAuth2 method works, but it is unlikely that many users are aware of this, even today.

DaveManz

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20533679#Comment_20533679

Thanks, Chris, for explaining further salient differences between OFX/QFX and FDX/EWC+. I recognize that at some point the end user does need to login to their FI in some manner to authorize FI transactions and downloads. The point you make about not all FI's adopting the same standards and the drive by some to add tweaks of a self-dealing nature seems understandable and adds to my comfort about using CSV downloads and doing the grunt work to manually clear those transactions within Quicken Classic.

I also understand that most Quicken customers will not find working with CSV files workable and an intrusion into getting their job done. If EWC+ via One Step Update is the only other choice, most will take that route. I am not planning on becoming a evangelist for CSVs. I would have preferred to continue getting the job done with QFX files.

And speaking of ImportQIF, I did use your fine program in 2004 when Quicken/Intuit got snarky about what type of account files could be imported from FI's. I dusted it off today and again am impressed with what a well-found program it is. Thanks.