Annoyingly, 
QuickBooks doesn’t support the import of QFX files (the reason for this is that Intuit charges banks for the ability to export financial data in the .qbo web connect format supported by QB. If your bank doesn’t pay this fee, you can’t download your financial data directly into QuickBooks).
Fortunately, you can use a quick little hack to sidestep this limitation:
1) Download your financial data as a QFX file.
2) Open the file in a text editor, like Notepad++, and locate the Intuit Bank ID label near the top of the code: <INTU.BID> with a number after it.
Sample QFX File:
<OFX>
<SIGNONMSGSRSV1>
<SONRS>
<STATUS>
<CODE>0
<SEVERITY>INFO
</STATUS>
<DTSERVER>20090618000000[-5:EST]
<LANGUAGE>ENG
<FI>
<ORG>ABC BANK
<FID>12345
</FI>
<INTU.BID>1234
</SONRS>
3) Change the number after <INTU.BID> to a banking institution that is supported by Intuit. 2430 seems to work well for this.
4) Save the file as .qbo.
5) Import the QBO file into QuickBooks Pro via Banking > Online Banking > Import Web Connect File or simply opening QuickBooks and double clicking on the .qbo file to import it.
6) You will be prompted to select an account into which to import the QBO file.
{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }
WOW. Thank you sooo much. I can’t believe how easy this was. It worked too! No stupid converters.
Does not work for me. Do any other values need to be changed other than the ONE number sequence following the BID> ? FID also lists the same reference above…
Thanks
Zack
You could try <FID>, but typically one only needs to edit <INTU.BID>.
Tried that as well… still get same error
” An error occurred while processing your online banking data.
Your data was not imported in to Quickbooks.
Please try importing your data again. If this error persists, contact QuickBooks technical support.”
Have you tried re-downloading the data and trying again from a clean slate?
Thank you so much!! Works Brilliantly!!!!!!
thank you so much! the best trick to get my BOFA acct to upload into QB for Mac. you made life so much easier!
You’re very welcome, glad it helped you out!
Wow cool! I just tried it so thanks
I use a converter that usually works really well but I have to be careful of using the right bank numbers etc and with 12 clients to do it can be cumbersome if I am trying to remember them all
The only issue I had was the file wouldnt recognize the bank so as a fix to that issue I created a new bank account and did the transactions into that for the new month then renamed the bank account and merged it with the old one. Still really easy
Thanks
You’re welcome. Glad it worked out well for you!
Won’t for for me, what versions of Quickbooks is this good for? I have QB for Manufacturing & Wholesale 2008. I understand what’s going on here, its an XML file and Intuit is making a killing charging for a service.
We tested it in QB Pro 2008 and 2011. You need to download as a .qfx file and then you should see the tag.
I am trying to download transactions from my cc bank and the only options I am receiving is for either an OFX or QIF format. When I look in notepad at both of those files, I do not see INTI.BID>1234. It ends with Language>ENG and then goes into the SIGNonmsgsrsvi message again.
I do not see FI; ORG>bank name; FID>12345; /FI>; INTU.BID>1234.
Any ideas?
Hi Voa, this tutorial is for .qfx files, not .ofx or .qif files. Try Googling a solution specific to those file types. Good luck!
I think I love you! No, I actually know I love you! THIS WORKS FOR ME!!!!!!!!!! Woo Hoo!!
Works like a Charm. I found out that my bank (Bank Of Hawaii) is not recognized by QuickBooks and therefore only generates a QFX. The trick is to use a number that is not used by any other financial institutions in your file! Check the QBO of your other institutions to make sure you use a unique number!
I use QB 2012
This worked quite well. Thank you for sharing!
AMAZING!!! I didn’t expect this to work, but it did. Next task…how to get old statements that I downloaded in Excel format into Quickbooks
I have a tax audit and need to enter all this bank and credit card data going back to 2009!
Hi there, thanks for this. I was able to do everything but “save as” .qbo I tried within Notepad to “save as” and also through right-clicking and choosing properties, but I could not change the file type from QFX to QBO nor from .TXT to QBO. I can change the “open with” to Quickbooks but it still doesn’t recognize the file because of the extension. How do I “save as” .qbo and from what place shall I try it (Notpad, Properties)?
Thank you so much!!!
Never mind! Stupid Windows had my “file extentions” hidden. I un-hid them and now it works like a charm!!! thank you sooooo much!!!!!
You’re welcome. Glad you figured it out.
I’m running Quickbooks Pro 2009. Quicken just stopped supporting online banking downloads. I did the following:
1) Downloaded a QFX file from American Express
2) Edited that file, changing the FID and INTU.BID to 2340
3) Saved it and renamed it with file extension QBO
4) In Quickbooks I did a Web Connect File Import
Quickbook displayed the online banking comm window and then returned with the dreaded
“Quickbooks is unable to verify the Financial Institution information for this download”
Any ideas?
Ed
Try just changing INTU.BID and leaving FID as is.
OMG it worked! freaked me out a bit to see a C***E logo rather than the card I was importing…you saved me a bunch!
hiker108, i think were screwed i have same version, its in the software not the file. we won’t be able to use .qbo files at all. they turn it off so you have to pay for new version/upgrade. wish i could find a way around it, but u cant just download the qbo and import it communicates and sees u have 2009 or older and wont allow the import unless you buy another newer version. its spread sheet import or manual entry now or buy same software over and over every few years. I HATE INTUIT SCAMMERS, my accounting firm dumped them because of this kind of stuff i have to convert everything to spreadsheets.
I 6have the exact same scenasrio as described by Ed in the June 5th post. I have tried going through this process several times and tried changing the INTU.BID value to 2340 (and also tried 2340). I 6continue to receive the following error msg:
“Quickbooks is unable to verify the Financial Institution information for this download”
Perhaps this is because QB2009 has now discontinued support for online banking?
Or any other suggestions to try?
Thanks….it would be great to get this to work!
Hi Bob, see the comments by rp and hiker108 above. It does sound like it’s due to discontinued support. We’ve tested within the last week in QB 2011 and it worked fine.
Worked for me using QB Pro 2012. First it did NOT work when I tried to start the process via double-click on the QBO. When I followed the menu commands Banking > Online Banking > Import Web Connect File, it gave me the option to choose an account for import, then imported the transactions seamlessly, to the specified file. Perfect! You just saved me a lot of time and money, which with my client load down to 2/3 what it was, every penny counts! PEACE!
THANK YOU! It worked just as you stated! I just wanted to thank you.
wow, you are the man! I was about to spend $40~$60 for some software to do this. your way was much cheaper and FREE!
Glad you found this useful Richie, cheers!
Brilliant solution – works perfectly. Thanks a million!
BTW, this issue is a perfect example of Intuit’s complete lack of customer focus. Most of us would gladly pay a few more dollars if all of our accounts sync’d without issues (if they were more like Apple, this kind of thing would ‘just work’). Instead they choose to charge banks an amount that many won’t pay given the low margins earned on checking accounts. The banks and intuit also don’t absorb the hassle when things don’t sync – we do!
A classic lose-lose situation. The customer suffers needlessly and Intuit leaves money on the table since we’d gladly pay a bit more for this functionality but instead Intuit wants to scrape value from banks who really don’t care if we suffer inconvenience.
You rock! Success! But it would be helpful to know what the proper code for Bank of America is. Right now, I’ve used your trick with the digits 2430 as suggested. This (plus, changing the file-extension from QFX to QBO) does seem to make the file import-able into Quickbooks. But Quickbooks still doesn’t know which of my accounts to apply the transactions to, and it gets kind of wonky trying to put them into whichever account IS properly linked to “2430″.
I’m stunned at how irresponsible Bank of America is about this. They’re going to have to admit sooner or later that they’re behind the curve. Reminds me of back-when in the early days of the internet, when banks wanted to charge you extra for on-line access, when in fact giving a customer some degree of access to his accounts on-line would SAVE the bank in terms of time and grief and teller salary. So, they tried to charge the customer a fee for the privilege of the customer having the right to do the bank’s work for the bank. Eventually so many banks just said, “Oh heck, man, we LIKE it when they take the data-munging AWAY from our under-educated counter staff” that the ones who were resisting had to follow the herd. Similarly, I think Bank of America will have to admit soon, that keeping QBO files inaccessible is just childish of them.
Glad you found this helpful. It’s likely that BOA doesn’t want to pay the licensing fee to Intuit for this feature, which is certainly not very convenient for customers.
Thank you so much! I had no problem with your solution. I had tried a converter program when it was free and had one example of the .qbo file. I was able to search for in that file and discovered that 5885 is the code for USBank.
Thanks again!
You’re welcome Kathryn, thanks for documenting the USBank code!
Worked like a charm! My bank website will download a .qbo file but apparently my bank ended their contract with Intuit so Quickbooks recently started giving the dreaded “Quickbooks is unable to verify your financial institution” error. So I just changed the INTU.BID to 2430 then Quickbooks asked me what account I wanted to import into, and it worked! I have QB 2010 Pro. Thanks!
Tried this with BofA and no go I get ” “Quickbooks is unable to verify your financial institution” error.
Im sure it is due to my version of quickbooks being 2009 Pro. Can anyone suggest any other way to get this fixed? besides buying a new version of quickbooks?
Hi Matt, see comments by Bob and rp above. You may be out of luck due to the version. You could also try another code in the .qbo file. Some have reported success with 5885.
Thanks much from a long time QB user and consultant, and programmer. I use both Quicken and QB and don’t believe customers should need to pay banks yet another fee to access Open data we already pay to access from the web log in, just to import it to a data file. My contribution:
There are two video tutorials for using the QuickBooks Online Banking center: Help menu > Learning Center, click on Overview & Setup.
For the bank account in QB, edit the account and fill in the account #. Then, the download will always match by account # for the data you got from the Web, and not be confused by the FID code you use. After all, the download is your actual data and conveys the account # internally. I can bring in one file that has all transactions for two accounts. I found this on one bank website’s “Reports” page. I created a filter for Prior Month and a filter for Current Month. They already have a link for Daily.
On the first download with an account # in QB with the pop up that asks you to match the data in the download to one of your QB accounts: Once you do this, everything is unique and linked to the correct account, even if the FID is not unique. FID is just the financial institution. Many of us have more than one account at the same institution. Make sure to set up the account # for each account in the Edit screen, and you have made it possible for the program to separately import the data to each bank account in your QB data file. You won’t get that pop up again.
Since the FID # you are using is not really generic but specific to a real institution, all you are impacting is the Online Banking Center, the far left dropdown, which simply is an organizating aspect for electronic communication to the institutions. Since you are getting this via a file, don’t worry about logos. Using one FID for all your web connect files means the online banking center can be used as one central point for all the downloaded data, even if you had to bring in mutliple web connect files for your various bank and credit card accounts. Even investment accounts can be managed with Web connect files. One FID means all accounts show in the Online Banking Center without havign to change the selection in the dropdown, top left.
And do not finalize the “online services” tab you have enabled, when editing those bank or credit card accounts. If you aren’t using the real code, you aren’t accessing the real institution, so there will never be authentication. Leave the userID and password info blank or with all 0′s as it is populated by the program.
You’re welcome. And thank you very much for including the detailed and helpful tips! It is great to have them documented.
thanks so much! quick and to the point–and it works!
Life Saver!!!!
Works perfectly. You are my hero!! Using QuickBooks Premier 2012 Contractor Edition. For those of you might be having a hard time, download the file but choose the “Open” option. 1st try, it didn’t work (I saved the file, then open it with notepad). Save and name the file “filename.qbo”. Good luck to you all!!
OMG THANK YOU!!!!!
Hi there,
Do you know if this should work with QB 2012 Premier? I can’t get it to work! I’m getting the same error message as Ed, “does not recognize financial institution.” Do you know another number that may work instead of 2430?
Thank you!
Sorry, not sure about QB 2012 Premier. Make sure you’re entering the code correctly and if it still doesn’t work, please let us know if you figure out the issue.
After finding a whole lot of crazy complicated solutions, used your method and it worked perfectly 1st try on Quickbooks Pro 2011. Thank you.
Oh my GOSH! I downloaded a ‘free’ trial an importing program today and then found it cost a subscription fee of over 100 bucks a year! Oops – kept looking- Then I found this hack. Wowww I am impressed and sooo thankful! :>
This really tics me off in other ways though . I have really really been struggling to reenter all the data twice and then match it to a statement, and what a load of **** intuit put me through.
AWESOME! Pulled from US Bank, all accounts and imported perfectly into QB2013 Pro. -As Chase Bank Accounts
Thank you!
I am trying to import chase banking in to QB 2008. I followed the entire process and got an error saying “Quickbooks is unable to verify Financial Institution information for this download. Please try again later”.
We had the bank setup on QB’s for upload but since it’s an older verion I keep getting an error saying
“ROBLEMS
your financial institution sent an error message. This can happen if your financial institution is having problems with its Internet banking system.
Wait 15 minutes, and then try connecting again. If you still cannot connect, contact your financial institution to see if its Internet banking system is working properly.
If you still have problems after talking to your financial institution, contact QuickBooks Technical Support. [OL-301] Attention QuickBooks 2008 users: Online Banking and other services in QuickBooks 2008 were discontinued on May 31, 2011. To maintain high-quality products, Intuit supports the current version of QuickBooks and the two previous versions. Upgrade to QuickBooks 2011 to continue using your Online Banking service. Call 1-866-676-9670 or visit QuickBook.com.
”
when I try and login the normal way.
Any thoughts?
Did you try waiting and retrying the connection in a few hours or so?
I haven’t. I am just at a business doing bookkeeping briefly. I will try again in a bit. That second error message that they gave about online banking and other services bieng discountinued after 5/31/2011. Is that the reason I should continue trying to upload the way you instructed above?
I just tried again. It’s been just over an hour since my first attempt and I got the same message… ughhh… need to upload that last 24 months worth of transactions to save a lot of time.
Perfect! Worked flawlessly with QB Pro 2013. I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t give this simple compatibility, but thanks to you it doesn’t matter…THANK YOU!!
btw if anyone cares that bank code gives you Chase Card Services.
This has brought tears of joy to my eyes thank you sooooo very much.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Worked for me, too: QuickBook 2013 for Mac.
Oh my goodness! This worked. Flawlessly to quote others, using QB Pro 2011 for Mac. I am speechless. I cannot believe that the solution was THIS DAMN SIMPLE and in repeated calls to US Bank, their customer service made this compatibility issue sound like it involved programming that could only be done by an unborn mastermind. To quote Seth, I can’t believe the bank wouldn’t provide this utterly simple solution for us QB users. Thank you, thank you.
This worked for me! Thank you so much! I could just kiss you! I cannot believe that the solution was this simple. I talked to my bank’s customer service and did some research online and I was told to use the .iif files they provided as there was no other download option for QuickBooks with my credit card statements. I really hate having to deal with the quickbooks .iif files, they suck, especially when you compare them to the simplicity of the .qbo files. Now I can just download the .qfx files, switch them over to .qbo and save a bunch of time! (I used this with QuickBooks Pro 2011) Thanks again!
I have been using this “hack” for more than 4 years now, and today it’s not working. Anybody else find it has stopped working? Perhaps QuickBooks has closed the loop-hole? Help!