In this tutorial, we’ll cover how to import credit card transactions into QuickBooks Online. You’ll learn how to import transactions automatically by connecting your credit card account to QuickBooks and how to import credit card transactions manually into QuickBooks Online manually in case your credit card isn’t supported by the platform.
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To connect your credit card to QuickBooks, you need the username and password that’s used to sign in to your online credit card account. If you haven’t set up online access to your credit card account, you must do so before continuing with these steps. Visit your credit card company’s website for information on how to activate your online access.
If you’ve completed our tutorial on how to import bank transactions, then this tutorial will be a breeze as the process is very similar. The only difference is that you’re importing credit card transactions instead of bank transactions.
Select the Banking dropdown under Banking from the left menu bar of your QuickBooks Online company dashboard, as shown below.
Go to the Banking Center in QuickBooks Online
Seeing a different left-side navigation menu?
QuickBooks has two user views: Business View and Accountant View. Your left-side navigation menu may look different depending on the user view you are in.
If your sidebar menu is not what is shown in our tutorial, it means that you are on Business View. We prefer and recommend using the Accountant View because it shows a full range of business accounting features and tools that you can use in QuickBooks.
To verify whether you’re using the Business View, click on the cog wheel at the top right-hand corner of your QuickBooks dashboard, and check whether the button on the lower right-hand says Switch to Accountant view, as shown below. If so, then it means you are on Business View.
Verify whether you are using Business View or Accountant View in QuickBooks
Once you verify that you are on Business View, click on Switch to Accountant view to update the appearance of your sidebar menu. In a few seconds, you should see the same left-side menu bar illustrated in this tutorial.
Switching from Business View to Accountant View in QuickBooks
If this is the first bank or credit card account that you’re connecting to QuickBooks, you’ll see the following screen and you should click the green Connect account button to add your credit card account.
Connect your first bank account in QuickBooks Online
If you’ve already connected another bank or credit card account, you’ll be taken to the banking center. Click the Link account button in the upper right corner of the screen to continue.
Link a credit card account to QuickBooks Online
Locate your credit card from the displayed options or enter the name of your credit card provider in the search box. QuickBooks supports more than 20,000 financial institutions worldwide, so it is likely that your credit card provider is supported for automatic import into QuickBooks. However, if you can’t locate your bank, then you need to import your transactions manually.
To guide you in the next steps, let’s follow a sample scenario where our fictitious company, Paul’s HVAC, has a business credit card with Capital One. In this case, we select Capital One from the list.
Search for your credit card company in QuickBooks Online
After clicking on your bank or credit card provider, QuickBooks will display a new screen to sign in to your bank account, as shown below.
Continue to your credit card sign-in page
QuickBooks will open a new browser where you can sign in to your bank or credit card account using your username and password. This step is necessary to establish a connection (called bank feeds) between QuickBooks and your bank or credit card provider.
Sign in to your credit card account in a new window
After signing in, your bank might ask you to confirm that you want to share your banking information with Intuit and provide a summary of the information to be shared. If you agree, click the appropriate button on your bank’s confirmation page, and you’ll be taken back to QuickBooks.
After completing the authorization process, QuickBooks will display a list of available accounts associated with your bank. This list may include various types of accounts, such as credit card, checking, and savings accounts. Select the specific account or accounts you wish to connect to QuickBooks Online.
If it’s a new account, such as in our case where Paul’s HVAC needs to create a new account for its Capital One credit card, we’ll click Add new (shown below) at the top of the drop-down box to open the new account setup form.
Select the bank account or accounts that you want and link to the Chart of Accounts
After clicking Add new, you’ll be asked to provide information to add an account to your Chart of Accounts. You can check out our tutorial on setting up the chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online if you want to learn more but, for now, you can provide a few details.
Since Our Last Update:
QuickBooks Online has revamped its chart of account setup form. The brand-new version is easier to use than the previous and has new features, such as simplified category selection and the ability to see where your new account is displayed in your reports.
Add a new credit card to the Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks Online
To complete the setup form based on our example, let’s select “Credit Cards” as the account type. Select the appropriate account, such as “Credit Cards.” Then, select the starting date or the date when you want to begin tracking transactions for that account in QuickBooks and the opening balance. Once done, click the green Save button.
After linking your credit card to an account from your chart of accounts, you must decide when QuickBooks should begin importing transactions.
Select the beginning date to transfer bank transactions
The default start date to pull transactions is the beginning of the year. You should try to pull transactions back to the date you wish to start using QuickBooks Online. If your credit company or QuickBooks doesn’t allow you to go back that far, you’ll have to transfer the older transactions using a QBO or CSV file.
As seen above, Paul’s HVAC is importing credit card transactions starting January 1 of the current year. Click the green Connect button when you’re done.
QuickBooks Online will take you to the Banking Center after connecting your bank account. You can find the uploaded transactions ready for review in the For review tab in the banking center.
For review tab in the Banking Center
You can peek at our guide on how to manage QuickBooks Online bank feeds if you’d like to learn more about classifying transactions, but we recommend waiting until we complete a few more setup tutorials. It’s important to have your chart of accounts finalized before you start assigning transactions.
Now that your credit card account is connected, new transactions will be imported automatically into QuickBooks Online daily—or you can click Update in the upper right corner to import any new transactions immediately. You can visit the banking center anytime by clicking the Banking drop-down under Banking from the left menu bar (as you did at the beginning of this tutorial).
How To Import Credit Card Transactions Manually Into QuickBooks Online With a CSV or Similar File
QuickBooks Online can import credit card transactions from the following types of files:
- CSV: These files are commonly used to export data for a multitude of purposes and can be opened and edited with Excel.
- QBO: QBO files are QuickBooks WebConnect files specifically designed for exporting information from bank or credit card accounts to QuickBooks.
- QFX: QFX files are financial exchange files created for exporting information to Quicken, but they’ll also work with QuickBooks Online.
- OFX: An OFX file is a text file specifically designed for exporting financial data.
- TXT: Text files can be imported but might require some editing first. You might want to open the TXT file with Excel and convert it to a CSV file for a smoother transfer.
To obtain a transfer file, log into your credit card account, and locate the option to download your account transactions. You’ll likely have the option to download your transactions in multiple formats. Choose the QBO or QFX format, if available, since they’re designed specifically for QuickBooks. The next best option is an OFX file. If none of those file types are available, a CSV or TXT file will suffice but require a couple of extra steps.
Save the transfer file to a location on your computer that you can remember easily to import the file.
From the Banking Center, open the drop-down menu next to Update in the upper right corner, and then select Upload from file.
Select Upload from file from the Banking Center in QuickBooks Online
Drag and drop your file of transactions or click Select files to browse your file on your computer, as shown below. Click the green Continue button to proceed.
Select the transfer file to import into QuickBooks Online
Next, you must choose an account from your chart of accounts to record the imported bank transactions. Based on our sample scenario, let’s pick the Capital One credit card.
Select an account to record imported transactions in QuickBooks Online
If needed, you can click Add new to set up a new credit card account as demonstrated earlier.
If your transfer file is a QBO, QBX, or OFX file, you’re done and can go back to the banking center to review the uploaded transactions. However, if your transfer file is a CSV or TXT file, you have a couple more steps to complete.
Before completing this step, you should open your CSV or TXT file in Excel to determine what information your bank exported and how it’s formatted. Below is a sample CSV file with columns for important information, such as date, description, and amount.
CSV file for import into QuickBooks Online
When you open a CSV file in Excel, you may be asked to save the file as an Excel file to preserve features. Don’t do this because the file must remain a CSV file to be imported into QuickBooks.
Notice that transaction amounts are shown in column C with credit card charges shown as positive numbers and payments to reduce the credit card balance as negative numbers. Some credit card companies might include charges in one column and payments in another column. Either way is fine, but you’ll need to know how the amounts are organized in the next step.
After completing Step 3, if you’re importing a CSV or TXT file, QuickBooks will take you to the file setup screen, where you’ll be prompted to specify the format of your data (i.e., whether the first row in your file is a header and how many columns show amounts). Scroll down to the file setup screen to map the fields in QuickBooks to the columns on your file.
Set up your file before importing to QuickBooks
When you’re satisfied with your mapping, click the green Continue button (not shown in the image) in the bottom right corner of the screen.
QuickBooks Online will then provide a list of transactions associated with the account you selected. Select the transactions you wish to import by clicking the checkbox next to the transaction.
Select which transactions you want to import to QuickBooks
A good practice is to import all your transactions into the file, including your personal transactions. Reconciling your credit card account from QuickBooks to your credit card statement is an important step to make sure your books are accurate. The reconciliation isn’t possible if you don’t import all transactions.
Once done, click the green Continue button in the bottom right corner of the screen to complete the import of your transactions. You will then receive a confirmation from QuickBooks that the import is successful.
Now that you have successfully imported your transactions, you can go back to the banking center to review them. If you need a guide on how to review the transactions, such as accepting, excluding, or matching them to an existing transaction, head to our tutorial on how to manage QuickBooks Online bank feeds.
The Importance of Connecting Your Credit Card to QuickBooks
The ability to connect a credit card to QuickBooks is one of the many reasons we hailed QuickBooks Online as the overall best small business accounting software. Once connected, all you need to do is sign in to QuickBooks and classify the transactions that will transfer daily automatically.
Most credit card companies allow you to connect to QuickBooks using your online sign-in credentials. If your credit card doesn’t allow a connection to QuickBooks, you can still import your credit card transactions using a QBO or CSV file with the help of Excel.
Combining personal and business activity on the same credit card makes for messy bookkeeping, as explained in our guide on how to separate business and personal finances. We highly recommend that you get a business credit card and use it purely for business, and you can check out our list of the best small business credit cards on the market for options.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
You can import your transactions automatically by connecting your credit card account to QuickBooks. If your credit card is not supported by QuickBooks, then you need to import your credit card transactions manually using the Upload from file button in the banking center.
QuickBooks Online supports the following file formats: CSV, QBO, QFX, OFX, and TXT.
Yes, you can. QuickBooks allows you to connect and import transactions from multiple credit card accounts.
Wrap Up
You’ve now learned to connect your credit card to QuickBooks Online and import credit card transactions manually when necessary. Our next guide is on QuickBooks Online multiple users setup, where you’ll learn how to allow your external accountant and other employees full access to your QuickBooks Online account.
