Quicken Import Processing
This is a description of of how Quicken processes imported transactions.
Quicken can import transactions from either QFX or QIF files. Before Quicken Subscription these two different file formats were processed about the same way, but that changed with Quicken Subscription.
I will first describe what is done for a QFX file import, and then describe how importing of QIF files is different.
Five processes are performed (note there are options to turn these on or off in Quicken).
Note for some reason transfer detection still is applied.
I'm not going to go into details on #4 just say that if the options are on and nothing else has changed/picked the payee/category Quicken can guess at the right one.
The renaming of a payee can be critical since the payee has to match exactly, except for case, to match the memorized payee.
The matching of a downloaded transaction to an existing transaction in the register is mostly done by matching the amounts. On a match the existing transaction is marked cleared, and the downloaded transaction information is "merged into" the existing transaction.
Transfer detection is done after the downloaded transactions are all in the register. What is does is guess that if it sees a downloaded transaction for a deposit in one account that has the same amount as a downloaded transaction another register that is a withdraw it will assume this is in fact a transfer that needs to be linked together. Since this is only a guess you should at least have the option to confirm it on. If allowed to merge two transactions that aren't really a transfer you will end up with just one transfer transaction and no way to separate it back out to two transactions. You will have to delete the transfer transaction and manually enter the two transactions.
The QFX format has no support of categories or splits. Splits have to be put in manually (which might be a reminder) and the category has to be filled in either by matching a memorized payee or letting Quicken guess it. I suggest that after you have used Quicken for some time and built up a lot of memorized payees you turn off such guesses.
Note to import using the QFX format you must have a supported version of Quicken, which these days means having Quicken Subscription with current subscription. Also note the US version only supports importing transactions in USD. The Canadian version can import in different currencies.
ImportQIF can create an QFX file if the import data file is either Excel or CSV. After setting up the column mapping, select the button to enable QFX output.
Now for QIF importing. No version of Quicken supports renaming rules for importing QIF files, but before Quicken Subscription all the other processes were done (this would be in Quicken 2017 and below). But even here there are a few differences. First of Intuit was trying to discourage use of QIF files and put in a "GUI block" where it wouldn't give you the option to select any account types other than asset or liability accounts. But if the QIF file has the account name and type in it, the import will go into that account. ImportQIF does this, so it bypasses that restriction.
The other thing that is different about the QIF import is that the QIF format does have support for categories and split.
If the category is in the QIF transaction then it will be used instead of Quicken looking it up using the memorized payee.
Starting with Quicken Subscription they dropped all the processing of QIF imported transactions with the exception of transfer detection. The transactions go directly into the register. This is different than even "automatic transaction entry mode" in that there won't even be a status set to let you know a transaction is new.
#2/Matching existing transactions is completely out, but the renaming of payees and assigning of categories can be done outside of Quicken because if these are put into the QIF file they will go into the register. In ImportQIF these options are named "Map". As in, Map Payee, Map Category. Also note that if you are using Excel/CSV then the category can be a column that you have mapped to a QIF/Quicken field.
Quicken can import transactions from either QFX or QIF files. Before Quicken Subscription these two different file formats were processed about the same way, but that changed with Quicken Subscription.
I will first describe what is done for a QFX file import, and then describe how importing of QIF files is different.
Five processes are performed (note there are options to turn these on or off in Quicken).
- Renaming the payee.
- Matching to existing transactions in the register.
- Matching to a memorized payee, which in turn is use to fill in the category.
- Guesses at payee/category.
Note for some reason transfer detection still is applied.
I'm not going to go into details on #4 just say that if the options are on and nothing else has changed/picked the payee/category Quicken can guess at the right one.
The renaming of a payee can be critical since the payee has to match exactly, except for case, to match the memorized payee.
The matching of a downloaded transaction to an existing transaction in the register is mostly done by matching the amounts. On a match the existing transaction is marked cleared, and the downloaded transaction information is "merged into" the existing transaction.
Transfer detection is done after the downloaded transactions are all in the register. What is does is guess that if it sees a downloaded transaction for a deposit in one account that has the same amount as a downloaded transaction another register that is a withdraw it will assume this is in fact a transfer that needs to be linked together. Since this is only a guess you should at least have the option to confirm it on. If allowed to merge two transactions that aren't really a transfer you will end up with just one transfer transaction and no way to separate it back out to two transactions. You will have to delete the transfer transaction and manually enter the two transactions.
The QFX format has no support of categories or splits. Splits have to be put in manually (which might be a reminder) and the category has to be filled in either by matching a memorized payee or letting Quicken guess it. I suggest that after you have used Quicken for some time and built up a lot of memorized payees you turn off such guesses.
Note to import using the QFX format you must have a supported version of Quicken, which these days means having Quicken Subscription with current subscription. Also note the US version only supports importing transactions in USD. The Canadian version can import in different currencies.
ImportQIF can create an QFX file if the import data file is either Excel or CSV. After setting up the column mapping, select the button to enable QFX output.
Now for QIF importing. No version of Quicken supports renaming rules for importing QIF files, but before Quicken Subscription all the other processes were done (this would be in Quicken 2017 and below). But even here there are a few differences. First of Intuit was trying to discourage use of QIF files and put in a "GUI block" where it wouldn't give you the option to select any account types other than asset or liability accounts. But if the QIF file has the account name and type in it, the import will go into that account. ImportQIF does this, so it bypasses that restriction.
The other thing that is different about the QIF import is that the QIF format does have support for categories and split.
If the category is in the QIF transaction then it will be used instead of Quicken looking it up using the memorized payee.
Starting with Quicken Subscription they dropped all the processing of QIF imported transactions with the exception of transfer detection. The transactions go directly into the register. This is different than even "automatic transaction entry mode" in that there won't even be a status set to let you know a transaction is new.
#2/Matching existing transactions is completely out, but the renaming of payees and assigning of categories can be done outside of Quicken because if these are put into the QIF file they will go into the register. In ImportQIF these options are named "Map". As in, Map Payee, Map Category. Also note that if you are using Excel/CSV then the category can be a column that you have mapped to a QIF/Quicken field.