Importing bank and credit-card statements

The easiest way to bring in your bank and credit-card transactions into MYOB Essentials Cashbook is to set up bank feeds. If your bank doesn’t offer bank feeds, you can also manually import electronic statements from your bank into MYOB Essentials Cashbook.

The transactions you import can then be allocated to your MYOB Essentials Cashbook transactions.

The format of the bank statement you can import

Your internet banking site should offer you the option to download electronic bank statements. To use these statements in in MYOB Essentials Cashbook, the statements must be in the .QIF format. Make sure you download your statements in one of these formats.

How frequently should I import bank and credit card statements?

This depends on the number of transactions going through your accounts. At first you should get statements at least monthly (or even daily if you have many transactions each day). As you get better at processing, you should be able to reduce the frequency.

Remember to note the period covered by each downloaded statement so there is no chance of missing some, or of importing entries twice.

The Import bank statement page will show you the statements you have already imported.

Step 1. Download your bank or credit-card statement x

Before you can import your statements into MYOB Essentials Cashbook, you need to download the statement files from your internet banking site, and save them on your computer or network.

To download bank and credit card statements from your bank

1. Log on to your online banking website for this account.
2. Download your statements in .OFX or .QIF format, saving them to a new folder on your computer or network.
3. If you have a choice of date format when downloading statements, choose dd/mm/yy.
4. Ensure that each statement has a unique, easily identifiable name. Also make a note of the location your statements were saved to, so you can find them easily.

Step 2. Import your statement into MYOB Essentials Cashbook x

Before you import your statements, take note of the following:

• You can import statements that are earlier or later than the last one imported.
• If you want to import several months’ worth of statements, we suggest you import and then allocate them one month at a time. This should make it easier to manage a large backlog of transactions.

To import transactions from a bank or credit-card statement

1. Open the cashbook for the relevant business.
2. Go to Banking> Import bank statement. The page displays any statements you have already imported.
3. Select the bank or credit-card account into which you want to import transactions from a bank statement.
4. Click on the Import button. A file window appears.
5. Select the .QIF file you want to upload, and click Open.
   If the import is successful, the View and match transactions page appears, displaying the status of the import and the imported transactions.
   Note that the statement you imported will now be listed in the Import bank statement page.

You can now proceed to allocating these transactions.