Overview
This feature allows you to import transactions from your bank or credit card vendors directly into Accounting Seed. Accounting Seed supports the following file formats which are used by most banks: OFX and QFX. The extension of the file needs to be one of these suffixes for the import to work. If your financial institution does not support OFX or QFX we recommend using the conversion tool below to convert a .csv file format to OFX or QFX.
Note: You may need to alter the .csv file format from your financial institution to use the conversion tool: https://csvconverter.biz/
The following are features of Financial File Import:
- Bank/Credit Card imports are executed from the "Financial File Import" tab. Simply navigate to this tab to start the process.
- The system will indicate which transactions have previously been imported and will not duplicate them.
Tip: Always save changes before going to the next page. - An error message is displayed if attempting to import more than 500 transactions.
- There is a limit of 125 transactions in one import if the Display Project Fields? AND Display GL Variable Fields? are not checked off.
- The Bank File Import feature is a convenient alternative import tool to the Bank Direct Connect feature if your financial institution is not supported within the Bank Direct Connect network.
Import a File
- Download transactions from your financial institution's website into one of the supported file formats: OFX or QFX. When selecting a file output format from your bank, labels like "Microsoft Money" and "Quickbooks" are often used to denote these file types. Accounting Seed recommends the latest version of OFX or Microsoft Money if given a choice of file formats from your financial institution.
- Navigate to the "Financial File Import" tab.
- Choose the Bank GL account where the transactions will be imported into.
- Click the "File Input" button to choose the file downloaded onto your computer in Step 1.
- Click the "Import" button. This will import the transactions to a grid view. You are able to display 10, 25, or 50 transactions at a time.
- By clicking on the Display Project Fields & Display GL Variable Fields, the system will allow you to tag these items on the imported transactions.
- Customer/Vendor Account and the GL accounts must be populated in order to import and create a Disbursement or Receipt record. A Credit Journal or Debit Journal is a Journal Entry and only requires the GL account although it is considered a best practice to populate the Customer/Vendor if that is applicable.
- For money coming out of your financial institution, assign the Vendor and GL Account and select either Disbursement or Credit Journal on the type picklist.
Important: On a new Cash Disbursement, the GL Account cannot be the AP Control GL Account. - For money coming into your financial institution, assign the Customer and GL Account and select either Receipt or Debit Journal on the type picklist.
- For bank transfers or credit card payments, you should import as Journal Entries (Debit Journal or Credit Journal).
- For money coming out of your financial institution, assign the Vendor and GL Account and select either Disbursement or Credit Journal on the type picklist.
- Clicking the Find Matching Data button will do one of the following:
- It will search Accounting Seed for existing records that match this imported transaction to help prevent entering a duplicate record.
- A Disbursement or Credit Journal transaction is matched if it is an exact dollar match and if the imported transaction date is within +/- 60 days of the existing record's date in Accounting Seed.
- A Receipt or Debit Journal is matched if it is an exact dollar match and if the imported transaction date is within +/- 5 days of the existing record’s date in Accounting Seed.
- If the Name on the imported transaction matches the File Import Name on the Customer/Vendor record, then that Customer/Vendor name will populate.
- If no matching data is retrieved, it will populate all bank transactions without a customer or vendor account with the default vendor found in Accounting Settings. When the transaction is complete, you can edit the account information.
- It will search Accounting Seed for existing records that match this imported transaction to help prevent entering a duplicate record.
- Clicking the Mass Populate GL Account button will populate all bank transactions without a GL account with the GL account you specify in the GL account field under the Import Options section.
- As of Geranium, the:
- Cleared Date field will auto-populate on Cash Disbursements, Cash Receipts, and Journal Entries matched or created in Financial File Import. Additionally, the Cleared Data field will auto-populate on Bank Deposit records matched in Financial File Import.
- Name field is editable for Disbursement type transactions, and then it is displayed in the Import Vendor Name field on the Cash Disbursement record created.
- Click Create Records.
- These records will auto-post upon creation.
____________________
- On a new Cash Disbursement, the GL Account cannot be the AP Control GL Account.
Comments
7 comments
The bank import feature does not include GL Variables.
Will this be corrected in future releases?
What is the work-around now?
Katie
Hi Katie,
If the account has a variable associated with it, then it will populate when the record is created. Will this work for you?
Also, we are focusing on improvements with just the bank direct connect tool and not the import financial file.
Thank you,
Ryan
I also worked in an org where the missing GLAV variables in the import functionality cause ABSOLUTE HAVOC. It was a multi entity org, and they imported a TON of back data and did not have GLAV variables set up on accounts and it caused WEEKS of clean-up work. If those are not going to be added, there should be a big warning on there somewhere to point out that they're missing. They spoke more than once about abandoning AS rather than trying to get it all cleaned up. Happily - we got through and past it, but ... I'd like to add another voice to getting them added - or disabling the feature.
Ryan,
This is a real problem for multi-company orgs. In this particular case, the account records do not have the GL variable populated. There are valid reasons for not populating that field on the account.
So after creating the transactions via the Bank File Import upload interface, the user will have to manually add the GL variable to each CD (or CR) that is created.
So that is a workaround, but it would be a lot better if the user could add the GL variable inside of the Bank File upload interface. If that improvement could be made, that would be wonderful.
Clients that use banks that do not participate in Yodlee do not have the option to use bank direct connect. They are stuck using the bank file import.
Thanks, Katie
Hi Katie,
Is there other logic that can be built in to help automate the population of the variables? Even if this was available in this screen, a user would still have to assign each transaction to a variable. Also, it would be best to submit a ticket to Yodlee to have their bank included.
Thank you,
Ryan
Ryan, the bank has now joined Yodlee and we can pull the transactions in via BDC. Excellent timing...Katie
Awesome, that's great news!
Thank you,
Ryan
Article is closed for comments.