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Accounting | How To

How To Manage Downloaded Credit Card Transactions in QuickBooks Online

Updated October 20, 2022

Tim Yoder, Ph.D., CPA

REVIEWED BY: Tim Yoder, Ph.D., CPA

Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.

 

WRITTEN BY: Mark Calatrava

Published June 30, 2022

Mark has researched and reviewed accounting software at Fit Small Business since 2019 and has developed an extensive knowledge of accounting software features and how unique business needs determine the best accounting software.

Published June 30, 2022

This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.

Learn More With Our QuickBooks Online Course
Explore the chapters in the guide.
  1. How to Set Up QuickBooks Online
  2. Part 1: Setting Up QuickBooks
    1. How to Set Up Company Information
    2. How to Customize Invoices, Sales Receipts & Estimates
    3. How to Set Up Invoices, Sales Receipts & Estimates
    4. How to Set Up Products and Services
    5. How to Set Up Messages
    6. How to Set Up Statements
    7. How to Set Up Expenses
    8. How to Set Up Advanced Settings
  3. Part 1: Setting Up QuickBooks (Cont.)
    1. How to Import Bank Transactions
    2. How to Import Credit Card Transactions
    3. How to Set Up Multiple Users
    4. How to Set Up the Chart of Accounts
    5. How to Set Up the Products and Services List
    6. How to Set Up Customers
    7. How to Set Up Vendors
  4. Part 2: Managing Sales and Income
    1. How to Create Estimates (Quotes or Bids)
    2. How to Create and Send Invoices
    3. How to Receive Payments
    4. How to Create & Send Sales Receipts
  5. Part 3: Managing Bills and Expenses
    1. How to Write & Print Checks
    2. How to Enter Bills
    3. How to Pay Bills
  6. Part 4: Managing Banking Transactions
    1. How to Enter Banking Transactions Manually
    2. How to Manage Downloaded Banking Transactions
    3. How to Record Bank Deposits
    4. How to Transfer Funds Between Bank Accounts
    5. How to Handle Bounced Checks From Customers
    6. How to Process Bank Reconciliation
  7. Part 5: Managing Business Credit Card Transactions
    1. How to Enter Business Credit Card Transactions Manually
    2. How to Manage Downloaded Business Credit Card Transactions
    3. How to Enter a Credit Card Refund
    4. How to Reconcile Business Credit Card Accounts
  8. Part 6: Managing Credit Card Sales
    1. How to Manage Credit Card Sales With QuickBooks Payments
    2. How to Manage Credit Card Sales With a Third-party Credit Card Processor
  9. Part 7: Set Up and Manage Payroll
    1. How Set Up and Run Payroll
    2. How to Manage Payroll Tax
    3. How to Add Historical Payroll Data
    4. How to Set Up Automatic Deposits
    5. How to Print Payroll Checks
    6. How to Run Payroll Reports
    7. How to Reconcile Payroll Liabilities
  10. Part 8: Reporting in QuickBooks Online
    1. How to Run a Profit and Loss Statement
    2. How to Run a Balance Sheet Report
    3. How to Run a Statement of Cash Flows
    4. How to Run an A/R Aging Report
    5. How to Run an A/P Aging Report

Quickbooks Online
This guide will cover how to manage downloaded credit card transactions in QuickBooks Online. We’ll also show you how to review the transactions, match them to an existing transaction, apply them to an unpaid bill, or categorize them as an expense. You’ll also learn how to create a rule to help QuickBooks better remember transactions.

We hope you find this course and our series of QuickBooks Online tutorials helpful as you learn how to get the most out of QuickBooks Online, our best small business accounting software. You can follow along in your account to better grasp the lesson, so if you don’t have an account, choose from a 30-day free trial or 50% off for three months.

Visit QuickBooks Online

Step 1: Navigate to the Banking Center

Navigate to the Banking Center by hovering over Banking (formerly Transactions) in the left menu bar and then clicking on the Banking drop-down menu, as shown below.

Arrow Navigating to the Banking Center.

Navigate to the Banking Center


Step 2: Review Downloaded Transactions

The top portion of the Banking Center displays each checking and credit card account that you have connected to your QuickBooks account. If you haven’t connected your credit card account, follow the steps in our tutorial on how to import credit card transactions. Once connected, click on the balance summary at the top of the Banking Center.

Selecting your credit card account in the Banking Center.

Select your credit card account in the Banking Center

The summary box displays the account balance reported by your bank and the balance from your QuickBooks account register. Transactions that are downloaded into QuickBooks are already reflected in the bank balance. However, downloaded transactions don’t affect your QuickBooks balance until you review and accept them.

Don’t forget to reconcile.

The bank balance and QuickBooks balance should be the same once all your transactions are reviewed. If there’s a difference, you should be able to find it when you reconcile your credit card account at the end of the month.

The orange number in the bottom-right corner of the credit card account summary box is the number of transactions downloaded from your bank account that haven’t yet been reviewed and accepted, matched, or excluded. A list of transactions to review will appear in the lower half of the Banking Center under the For review tab, as shown below.

Credit card transactions to review are found in the For review tab.

Credit card transactions to review are found in the For review tab

Advanced settings:

You can specify which columns will appear under the For review tab by clicking on the settings cogwheel directly above the last column.


Step 3: Compare Downloaded Transactions to Existing QuickBooks Transactions

To avoid duplicate transactions and incorrect credit card balances, match downloaded credit card transactions with those you’ve already entered in QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks searches for existing transactions that match the imported transaction automatically. If any are found, the word “match” will appear in the Action column on the far right.

Clicking on Match will connect the transactions immediately, so we suggest refraining from doing so until you review the match, which you can do by clicking anywhere on the transaction screen—except in the Action column.

View downloaded transaction detail in QuickBooks Online.

View downloaded transaction detail in QuickBooks Online

Matching Existing Transactions

The example above (equipment purchase) is a match found with an existing transaction. This match occurred because the credit card charge was entered manually into QuickBooks at the time it was made. By clicking the green Match button, the credit card transaction will move from the For review tab to the Categorized tab, but no transaction will be created in the QuickBooks register since the transaction already exists.

Matching Unpaid Bills

To determine if your downloaded credit card transaction is likely a bill payment, QuickBooks will scan the list of unpaid bills you’ve entered. In the example below, Paul’s Plumbing entered a bill for an equipment purchase for $394.06 on March 7, 2022. The bill was paid with a credit card, but the payment wasn’t recorded in QuickBooks.

Match credit card transactions to unpaid bills in QuickBooks Online.

Match credit card transactions to unpaid bills in QuickBooks Online

Clicking the green Confirm button allows QuickBooks to create a new transaction in your QuickBooks register, recording the credit card charge and offsetting the unpaid bill or accounts payable (A/P).

Finding Other Matches

If you made a partial payment on an outstanding bill, QuickBooks won’t suggest a match automatically since the amount of the charge is different from the bill. Click Find other matches in the transaction detail to provide a list of outstanding bills and indicate which bill the credit card will be applied to.

You might also have to use the Find other matches button for matching transactions where the amounts are, in error, slightly different. You’ll need to correct the QuickBooks transaction amount to match the actual credit card charge before you can match the transactions.


Step 4: Create New Credit Card Transactions

You’ll need to create a new transaction if the credit card transaction hasn’t been recorded manually in QuickBooks and isn’t a payment of an outstanding bill.

View QuickBooks suggested credit card transaction.

View QuickBooks suggested credit card transaction

In the above example, QuickBooks suggests that the credit card charge is categorized as “Utility Expense.” We highly recommend you complete all fields for the transaction as if you were recording the transaction manually.

You’ll want to fill in the Vendor/Customer field so that every transaction with that vendor or customer is grouped accordingly in QuickBooks. You’ll also need to tick the “Billable” box and add to the Customer field if you’ll bill the customer for the expense; skipping this means you’ll be unable to add their payment to your invoice.

Create a Rule

Click on Create a rule at the bottom of the transaction detail to create a rule based on the information you entered in this transaction.

Create a rule to memorize credit card transactions.

Create a rule to memorize credit card transactions

The “Create rule” form is similar to the one you learned about in our tutorial on how to manage QuickBooks Online bank feeds.

First Screen in Setting automatic rule details in QuickBooks Online.

Setting automatic rule details in QuickBooks Online (screen 1 of 2).

Scroll to the bottom of the form to specify other fields, such as payee, class, location, and memo.

Second screen in Setting automatic rule details in QuickBooks Online .

Setting automatic rule details in QuickBooks Online (screen 2 of 2)


Why It’s Important To Manage Downloaded Credit Card Transactions in QuickBooks Online

After you import credit card transactions into QuickBooks Online, you must tell the platform how to classify the transactions. Imported credit card transactions don’t transfer into your account register automatically. Instead, they appear as transactions awaiting review in the Banking Center. Using the Banking Center, you must do one of the following for each credit card transaction:

  1. Match the transaction to an existing QuickBooks transaction.
  2. Apply the transaction against an unpaid bill in QuickBooks.
  3. Create a new expense transaction and provide an expense category.

Don’t Exclude Transactions

While the option exists in QuickBooks, you shouldn’t exclude transactions imported from your credit card account. Every transaction, including personal transactions of the owner, must be recorded in QuickBooks Online for the credit card account to reconcile and your books to be complete. Read our bookkeeping tips if you need help handling personal transactions.

Wrap Up

You successfully learned how to manage downloaded credit card transactions in QuickBooks Online and how to match them to existing transactions and apply them against unpaid bills. You also learned to create a rule so that QuickBooks can provide greater detail when suggesting new transactions. The next guide in our QuickBooks Online Training Course is how to enter a credit card refund for when you receive one from vendors.

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About the Author

Mark Calatrava

Find Mark OnLinkedIn

Mark Calatrava

Mark Calatrava is an accounting expert for Fit Small Business. He has covered more than 50 accounting software for small businesses and niche industries and has developed an in-depth knowledge of the important features of accounting software and how the importance of these features vary by business.

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