How to add a bank account to QuickBooks

Connecting an account to the bank feeds in QuickBooks has several advantages. QuickBooks can automatically download and categorize transactions, saving time and improving accuracy. Later, reconciliation is also much faster for a connected account.

Account connection is simple. Many bank accounts and credit cards can be added – including the Wise Business account. There is a straightforward manual option too for unsupported accounts.

Looking for an international account that can connect with QuickBooks? Open a Wise Business account. Automatically sync your bills with QuickBooks to save time, while you save money.

This piece has been written in collaboration with Esther Friedberg Karp, an esteemed bookkeeper and Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

How to add a bank or credit card account to QuickBooks

Connecting an account to the bank feeds in QuickBooks is straightforward. Doing so makes financial management much easier.

You can connect as many accounts as you need to. These can be business or personal accounts.

Add an account with a direct feed connection

Most bank and credit card accounts can be added automatically. To do this, follow these steps:

To add a new bank or credit card account:

On the Banking tab, select Connect account (if you’ve never linked accounts before) or Link account (if you’ve already linked one or more accounts). In the search box, enter your bank or credit card provider name. Choose the relevant company and select Continue. Follow the displayed steps to log in and clear provider security. Once logged in, choose the corresponding general ledger account to connect with QuickBooks. Then select the account type from the Account type dropdown.

QuickBooks will then connect to the account, download recent transactions, and categorize them.

What to do if you can't connect your bank to QuickBooks

QuickBooks bank feeds can connect to many accounts automatically.

If your bank or credit card account is not one of them, you can still add transactions via the bank feeds manually. You can also use this method to add older transactions for an online account.

When adding transactions, it is important to be aware of the dates. Before adding new transactions, verify the date of the oldest transaction shown for the account. This will avoid duplicate transactions.

To verify the date of the oldest transaction:

• Go to Bookkeeping or Accounting, then select Chart of Accounts.
• For the account to which you want to add transactions, and then select View register.
• Find the oldest existing transaction and note the date.

Add an account manually to QuickBooks

To add transactions, follow these steps:

Access and sign in to online banking for your account or credit card. Download transactions into a CSV file. The date range should be at least one day before the date of your oldest transaction. Ensure the file is in the correct format for QuickBooks and the size is less than 350 KB. Upload the CSV file to QuickBooks. Then open the bank feeds section of QuickBooks Then select Upload from file in the Link account dropdown. Once uploaded, the transactions need to be categorized and reconciled.

For more details on CSV files, see the detailed instructions from QuickBooks.

Note also that there is a limit on how many accounts you can connect. This is based on your QuickBooks plan.

If you see a message stating that you have reached the limit, you can inactivate accounts you no longer use.

Connect QuickBooks to the Wise Business account

QuickBooks Online and Wise Business can easily be connected and synced. Transactions are then automatically synced between the two.

Once accounts are connected, all bills created in QuickBooks Online will sync with Wise. Bills paid in Wise are matched to the original bill in QuickBooks. Everything is categorized into accounts, or if no bill is found in QuickBooks, the payment will be added as an expense.

This is a great time-saving feature that will speed up bill management and payment. It will also lessen the amount of manual reconciliation.

What’s more, all international bills paid with Wise will use the real mid-market rate. You can even save up to 19x compared to PayPal!

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*This piece has been written in collaboration with [Esther Friedberg Karp](https://wise.com/gb/blog/author/esther-friedberg-karp), an esteemed bookkeeper, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and founder of [CompuBooks](https://www.e-compubooks.com/).*

Esther Friedberg Karp, MBA, is an internationally-renowned trainer, writer, business consultant, and speaker with advanced certifications in both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online.

She has been named twice to the list of Insightful Accountant’s Top 10 QuickBooks ProAdvisors worldwide, with the titles “Top International ProAdvisor” and “Top Trainer/Writer ProAdvisor.”

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Sources:

1. Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online
2. Manually upload transactions into QuickBooks Online
3. Connect Wise with QuickBooks Online

All sources checked 24 June, 2022.