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How to import a CSV, QIF, OFX, QFX or MT940 file from bank or other application?
How to import a CSV, QIF, OFX, QFX or MT940 file from bank or other application?

MoneyWiz can import many different file formats. Learn how to initiate a manual import to bring transactions over from a different source.

Iliya Yordanov avatar
Written by Iliya Yordanov
Updated over 4 years ago

Whether you're switching from another application to MoneyWiz or importing your historical data from banks, you might end up with a file in one of those formats: CSV (comma-separated values), QIF (Quicken Interchange Format), OFX (Open Financial Exchange), QFX, (Quicken Financial Exchange) or MT940 (SWIFT). MoneyWiz can handle importing those so read on to learn how!

In order to begin importing a file, you need to "feed" it into the application. To do this either:

  • simply drag the file and drop it onto the MoneyWiz application window or its icon. Once the file is loaded, you'll be presented with an Import Wizard that will guide you through the import process or

  • copy the contents of the file you wish to import and go to MoneyWiz Settings (by clicking on the gear icon in the menu) and then Import from clipboard. MoneyWiz will read the clipboard contents and try to import the file.

Match CSV fields

When importing a CSV file, MoneyWiz will also ask you to determine how the fields in the CSV file would relate to the transaction properties in MoneyWiz. You should be careful with that part as many banks would export all kinds of information like codes you don’t use, or numbers that have no meaning for you. In any case you should not link those, but make sure you have mapped at least the Date, the Amount and the Payee or Description.

If you are having trouble with this part, you might want to check if you can reformat your CSV file according to our guidelines.

Select Date format

MoneyWiz recognizes many date formats but sometimes it might need some help. For example, with dates like 6/6/2019, is this mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy? If MoneyWiz cannot figure out the date format without your help, it'll show you a couple of transactions and ask you to select the correct date format used throughout the file.

Link Accounts

MoneyWiz will list all the accounts it has found transactions for inside the file and ask you to link those accounts with accounts in your MoneyWiz database.

During this stage simply link the accounts on the left with respective accounts on the right. If you haven't created your accounts prior to import, you can tell MoneyWiz to create them now for you.

After this step, MoneyWiz will offer you to pick from two import modes:

  • Quick import -- quickly import your file, selecting default values for all remaining stages. For example, if no match was found for your payee, MoneyWiz will create new payee.

  • Advanced import -- manually proceed through each stage and review default settings.

Link Payees

In most cases bank statements contain the name of the payee and other information which describes the person or company which you were paid by or you paid to. You can link the payees found in the bank statement file to your MoneyWiz payees or you can create new payees.

Once you link these payees, the next time you import a file which contains information for some or all of them, by default MoneyWiz will have them pre-selected the same way you configured the last time. It will ask you how to link only for newly found payees.

If there are no payees found in the bank statement file, this phase will not appear.

Link Categories

It is rarely the case for banking institutions to include categorization in the exported bank statement file, but if you exported your data using a financial software it is very likely that categorization will be included. In that case you will be asked to link the categories found in the file you are importing to already existing categories in MoneyWiz. You will be given the option to create new categories as well.

Note that if you select the Create New Category option, the category will be created with a question ? mark icon. It may be worth going through all new categories to change their icons to something more meaningful. See Managing Categories guide.

Once you link these categories, the next time you import a file which contains information for some or all of them, by default MoneyWiz will have them pre-selected the same way you configured the last time. It will ask you how to link only for newly found categories.

If there is no categorization in the bank statement file, on this phase you will be asked to link the payees to your existing categories. This will help you have your transactions properly categorized right after you import them.

You can select a proper category for all payees found in the file you are importing or you can leave them Not Linked. If you select the latter, the imported transactions will not be categorized.

These links are also saved so the next time you import a bank statement, the app will automatically suggest you to use the same categorization.

Transaction duplicates detection

MoneyWiz checks all transactions you wish to import against already existing transactions and in case it finds possible duplicates it will ask you what to do. This can happen for a number of reasons, for example:

  • you are trying to import the same bank statement file for the second time or,

  • you have imported all transactions for September and you are trying to import a bank statement which includes transaction from 25 Sep to 25 Oct for example. In this case transactions that appear between 25 and 30 Sep can be duplicated or you can skip them or,

  • you are importing the two accounts which participate in the same transfer transaction.

These phases will not appear if MoneyWiz can recognize the format of the dates and there are no duplicate transactions. After you set everything MoneyWiz will start importing all transactions that are listed in the file you selected for import.

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