QIF to QBO Converter

QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) is the text export of Quicken and of many older bank sites and personal-finance programs: one field per line (D date, T amount, P payee, M memo, N number, L category, S/E/$ for splits) and a caret ending each record. It names no account: the section header says only Bank or CCard, and an !Account block gives the account's Quicken name at best. QuickBooks needs a routing and account number, an INTU.BID and a transaction id per line, none of which QIF has, which is why QuickBooks stopped importing QIF long ago.

The conversion keeps dates, amounts, payees, memos and check numbers. The transaction ids are derived from those fields, so converting the same QIF twice yields the same ids and QuickBooks skips the second import. Categories and splits have no place in a Web Connect file: the category and the split lines are written into the memo so nothing is lost from view, but you categorise again in the bank feed, where QuickBooks rules can do it automatically.

US Quicken writes dates as 1/15'26, with an apostrophe before a two-digit year for 2000 and later, sometimes with a space-padded day (1/ 5'26). UK and Australian versions write the day first. The converter reads both forms and decides day-first when any date in the file makes it unavoidable; set the order explicitly when every date could be read either way. Amounts may contain thousands separators (1,500.00), which are read correctly.

Newer Quicken exports repeat each amount in a U line and add flags this converter does not need (C cleared status, F reimbursable, A address lines); they are skipped. Investment sections (!Type:Invst) are skipped with a note, since Web Connect files carry bank and card transactions only.

QuickBooks links a QBO file to one of its accounts by the routing and account number on the first import and remembers the pair. Enter the real numbers of the account the Quicken data came from, and keep entering the same ones for later files, or QuickBooks will offer to set up a new account. For a credit card only the account number is used. INTU.BID 3000 is accepted by QuickBooks and shows "Wells Fargo" as the source label; enter your bank's own id if you have a QBO or QFX file from it to copy the number from.