If you are a QuickBooks Online (QBO) user, then you are most likely familiar with bank feeds. Bank feeds are a great feature, but they can be troublesome at times. If your bank feed is wrong, how can you fix it? We list some common questions that can help you determine the source of the error and how to correct it.
Is your bank feed connected?
Bank feeds automatically bring in activity from your online banking so you can efficiently create transactions in your accounting software. If your bank feed is not connected to your online banking account, then new transactions will not come into QBO. Without transactions coming in, the book balance will not agree with your bank statement balance.
You can verify if your bank feeds are connected by looking at the dashboard in QBO. Typically, any bank feeds that have disconnected will be indicated with a red symbol or alert. Selecting the link associated with the alert will guide you to the steps needed to reconnect your bank account.
Tip: If you have several bank accounts tied to a single banking institution, you may have to disconnect all of your accounts and then reconnect them as a group for your bank feeds to work properly. Refer to the support area of your QBO software for more details.
Is your bank feed missing activity?
Often when bank feeds break and are later reconnected, gaps in the banking activity may occur. How can you verify what activity has come into the bank feed?
You can review the bank feed through the Banking screen. After selecting the correct account, you can use the For Review, Categorized or Excluded filters to review your bank feed.
If you determine that your bank feed is missing activity, the best solution is to import the missing transactions into your accounting software. QBO provides templates and instructions for how to do this. QBO accepts bank feed imports in CSV, OFX, & QBO formats.
Do you have duplicate transactions?
Sometimes when bank feeds are connected, duplicate transactions are brought into the bank feed. Usually the cause is not using the proper start date for automatic bank feeds to resume. Duplicate transactions will throw off your book balance.
The methods for finding duplicate transactions in QBO are similar to those described above for finding missing transactions. If you find duplicate transactions in your bank feed, how do you remove them?
Before you proceed, confirm that the transactions are duplicates. Removing the wrong transactions will take your bank feed issues from bad to worse.
If using QBO, from the Banking tab, navigate to the bank account to view it’s bank feed. Select the duplicate transactions, then select Exclude.
Is your bank feed for a credit card?
Some businesses have a master credit card account with multiple sub cards used by employees for purchasing. Depending on the banking institution, you may have to set up separate accounts in your accounting software for both the master and sub card accounts.
Managing these types of bank feeds can be tricky. If not managed properly, it can cause discrepancies in your balances.
How do you correct this? At the end of each period, you will need to enter a transfer to record a payment from the master credit card account to the sub card accounts. Normally this amount would equal the total charges listed on the credit card statement for each sub card.
The end result should be that at the end of each period, the balance in your sub cards should be $0.00, while the balance in the master account should match the total balance according to your credit card statement.
Need additional help?
Although the suggestions above cover the most common bank feed issues, it is not a complete list. For bank feed issues, we do recommend enlisting the help of a QB ProAdvisor. Fortunately, everyone at our Beyond Team are ProAdvisors. Looking for some additional help with your accounting software? Visit our Get Started page to contact us!