Bank of America - Quicken only downloads 3 months

JKennedyMD
JKennedyMD Quicken Windows Subscription Member

How do I get Quicken to download more than 3 months of transactions from Bank of America? I need the holes from throughout 2025 downloaded. It would seem to me that they could download 18 months of data, not just 3 months.

Comments

  • BK
    BK Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    This depends on how much data the Financial Institution (FI) makes available for the download purpose. Most FIs typically limit this to 1-3 months worth of data, unfortunately. And each FI is different.

    In your situation wanting more data, the usual approach would be to manually download the QFX file from the FI and then manually import it to Quicken - which works like a charm in most situations. Unfortunately again, BofA discontinued the availability of the QFX formatted file a few months ago. They only have an Excel CSV format, one month at a time. To be clear, this is all BofA's doing, not Quicken.

    This means you have to download about 12 CSV files from BofA (since you wrote 2025 data), then manually edit and change the format of each file to the format that Quicken recognizes and then import them into Quicken. It is a doable task but time consuming.

    - Q Win Deluxe user since 2010, US Subscription
    - I don't use Cloud Sync, Mobile & Web, Bill Pay

  • DaveManz
    DaveManz Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    edited January 20

    If I might jump in here, the removal of QFX and QIF download options at BofA was initiated by Quicken's integrator, Intuit, not BofA. The rationale is that the OFX format/process is more secure. But wait, it is not more secure than downloading by an individual logged into his BofA account a CSV (or QIF) file. So the motives for the more to OFX is somewhat clouded by a lesser degree of security than CSV files.

    And while on the topic of CSV files, the prompt that Quicken Classic throws up at the start of a CSV import shows an incorrect order for the columns. See the Quicken Classic support topic entitled:

    Import transactions from .CSV file

    for the correct column layout. And scrub any commas from Amounts fields as the import, despite what the Support article says, will treat embedded commas in numbers as the trigger for a new column.

  • DaveManz
    DaveManz Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    edited January 22

    Correction; my reference to OFX in the previous msg is incorrect. It should have been "EWC+". And Intuit is Quicken's aggregator, not integrator. Sorry for the mix-up.

  • BK
    BK Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    RE:

    the removal of QFX and QIF download options at BofA was initiated by Quicken's integrator, Intuit, not BofA.

    @DaveManz , Please share your source so that we can all learn from and become better informed users - Thank you. I ask because the head's up email alerts I had received from BofA last summer, online research and this Quicken announcement all indicate that this was a decision made by the Financial Institution with no mention of Intuit. Cheers.

    - Q Win Deluxe user since 2010, US Subscription
    - I don't use Cloud Sync, Mobile & Web, Bill Pay

  • DaveManz
    DaveManz Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    edited January 21

    Well, it is mostly a moot point now, but did BofA send you a notice about changes in the One Step Update process or in the QFX downloads? For me, who has not used OSU for several years due to it often being a multi-step update to get it working again, the continued presence (after Dec 1, 2025) of the QFX download option on BofA's online presence and the subsequent failure of Quicken to import those freshly downloaded QFX files, starting around Dec 1st, leads one to believe, at first flush, that it is Quicken, not BofA, that changed operations first. As Chris_QPW later explained, it was Intuit's use of a newly-changed FIDIR.txt file which triggered the failure of Quicken to import a QFX file (after many years of success). None of this was communicated to the end user prior to failure. And the point that sticks is that the QFX error message displayed by Quicken Classic when the import no longer worked did not mention a new option needed, a work-around or any helpful suggestion; only that the FI was not valid and that we should "Try again later". That later never was to come to past, was it?

  • BK
    BK Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    Understanding the process is not a moot point IMO, rather very helpful to learn how things work. I am always eager to learn from you and all the experts including and especially from one of the best

    @Chris_QPW who wrote this in the other post that you mentioned:

    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.

    So it was (and typically is) first the FI that makes a decision to make a change or whatever, and either communicate or surprise others such as Intuit/Quicken to scramble and comply.

    I have been on BofA's EWC since 2010 and then on EWC+ since they transitioned it a few years ago (I think 2022?) and everything has worked and continues to work solid.

    but did BofA send you a notice about changes in the One Step Update process or in the QFX downloads?

    Yes they did via email on multiple occasions last summer, warning about the upcoming discontinuation of QFX downloads or something to that effect which they finally did last Sep. All of my accounts are connected via DC, EWC+, EWC and of course offline manual ones. I had one Web Connect account which is closed now.

    Regards

    - Q Win Deluxe user since 2010, US Subscription
    - I don't use Cloud Sync, Mobile & Web, Bill Pay

  • DaveManz
    DaveManz Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭

    Thanks, BK, for more about the timeline of your switch to EWC+ and notice to you about discontinuance of Web Connect/QFX exports by the FI. Since Intuit was a significant player in the FDX development I would not be so bold as to say that Intuit was in the dark about the cessation of Web Connect services. Chris_QPW indicated that Intuit even tilted the playing field in its favor for handling of Web Connect services.

    The timeline of your migration from Web Connect to EWC and then to EWC+ prompted me to look back at my previous communications with Quicken over the past few years. I did find the notice from Quicken in Oct of 2022 that BofA would no longer be supporting BillPayer transactions from me via Quicken. At that point I opted out of allowing BofA from sharing my BofA info with Quicken and started logging into BofA to set up Bill Payments and download (via BofA's QFX option) account activity. This opt-out may be the reason I did not receive further emails from Quicken about the life span of Web Connect.

    From my perspective, all the big players (Quicken, Intuit and the FI's) are mostly concerned about their profit margins (isn't Intuit's owner on Forbes List of the richest persons?) and increasingly treat customers as cannon fodder for marketing personal info to others. (Have we forgotten the source of the greed of the Great Recession of 2008?)

  • DaveManz
    DaveManz Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    edited January 25

    A correction is needed. Version R64.19, released in Aug 2025, did correct the column template required for import of CSV files into Quicken. And, they also enabled the ability to import Cat:Subcats into the Category field. Nice.