QUICKBOOKS ONLINE FORMAT REFERENCE
QuickBooks three-column CSV format. Check dates and signed amounts.
For bookkeepers preparing a bank transaction upload, the three columns are Date, Description and Amount. Stmtio's dedicated export writes one signed amount per row and dates in MM/DD/YYYY. Verify how your QuickBooks Online account reads those dates and signs before confirming an import.
Stmtio 0.1.0 · Intuit sources checked October 7, 2026 · QuickBooks Online bank transactions
01 / COLUMN MAPPING
One date. One description. One signed amount.
- Date
- The transaction's reviewed date. Stmtio's QuickBooks export writes month/day/year, such as
03/13/2026for March 13. - Description
- The reviewed transaction text. A comma or quote belongs inside this field, without creating an extra column.
- Amount
- A signed decimal amount in USD. In Stmtio's convention, income is positive and expenses are negative. There is no separate currency or review-status column.
Intuit accepts three-column and four-column layouts. The four-column option separates Credit and Debit; Stmtio's dedicated export uses the single Amount column.
Choose QuickBooks Online CSV in Stmtio after reviewing the extracted rows against the PDF. The standard CSV export instead has five columns and YYYY-MM-DD dates. They are different files.
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03/02/2026 | Client payment | 2400.00 |
| 03/03/2026 | Office supplies, paper | -86.50 |
| 03/13/2026 | Monthly "account" fee | -25.00 |
Three invented transactions: $2,400.00 income and $111.50 expenses. Net movement: $2,288.50. These are format examples, not real bank records.
Download synthetic CSV ↓02 / DATE INTERPRETATION
March 2 must stay March 2.
03/02/2026 means March 2 in Stmtio's MM/DD/YYYY export. A day/month/year reader could interpret it as February 3. A file can look tidy while every ambiguous date is wrong.
Intuit's current US format guide recommends dd/mm/yyyy. Check the date-format selection available in your QuickBooks account and inspect the preview. Include a date with a day above 12, such as March 13, as well as an ambiguous date in that check.
If the importer requires day/month/year, convert the actual dates in a working copy and export a consistent CSV. In Excel, first import the Date column with its known month/day/year order. Then format the parsed dates for the destination. Formatting a text cell alone does not reliably convert its date.
Reopen the saved CSV and check the text it actually contains. Remove weekday suffixes if present, and keep one date format throughout the file.
03 / MONEY IN AND MONEY OUT
Check the direction as well as the value.
Stmtio preserves the signed amounts you review. An export does not correct a transaction that was assigned the wrong direction.
2400.00
Income: positive
The synthetic client payment increases this bank account. It should appear as money in when mapped to the intended bank account.
-86.50
Expense: negative
The office-supplies payment decreases this bank account. Keep the minus sign; an unsigned 86.50 could mean the opposite transaction.
Credit card statements can use different sign conventions. Intuit advises choosing the correct credit card account when uploading. Compare a known purchase and a known payment in the preview before reversing any values. These bank-account examples are not a universal credit-card mapping.
04 / THE SAVED FILE
A comma in a description is still one field.
Stmtio produces a comma-delimited file encoded as UTF-8 with a BOM. Its CSV writer quotes descriptions containing commas, quotes or line breaks. Inside a quoted field, an embedded quote is doubled.
Date,Description,Amount
03/02/2026,Client payment,2400.00
03/03/2026,"Office supplies, paper",-86.50
03/13/2026,"Monthly ""account"" fee",-25.00In the third transaction, Monthly ""account"" fee becomes Monthly "account" fee when read as CSV. Check that the description remains in one column after any spreadsheet edits.
Keep Amount cells numeric, with a decimal point and a minus sign where needed. Avoid currency symbols or thousands separators in that field. Export CSV rather than renaming an XLSX file. If Excel saves with semicolons under your regional settings, check the delimiter before uploading.
05 / BEFORE CONFIRMING
Check the file and the preview.
Compare transactions with the source PDF using the statement review checklist, then follow the QuickBooks upload steps.
- Headers and mappingMap Date, Description and Amount to the matching fields. If a comma has created a fourth column, repair CSV quoting in a working copy.
- Dates and signsVerify an ambiguous date, a day above 12, one income and one expense. If the preview disagrees with the statement, stop before confirming.
- Rows and duplicatesExclude headers, balance rows and unwanted transactions in Stmtio. Excluded rows are omitted from its export. Compare the intended transaction count and avoid periods already covered by a bank feed or previous upload.
- File limits and editionIntuit's US Online guidance specifies an English file of 350 KB or less and up to 1,000 transaction lines per upload. Split larger periods and check your region's current limits. This is not a QuickBooks Desktop import guide.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Before using the file.
What are the three columns for QuickBooks Online CSV?
Date, Description and Amount. The three-column format uses one signed amount for each transaction. Intuit also documents a four-column format with separate Credit and Debit columns; Stmtio uses the three-column option.
Which date format does Stmtio export?
Stmtio 0.1.0 exports MM/DD/YYYY in its QuickBooks Online CSV option. Intuit recommends dd/mm/yyyy in its current guidance. Check the date format in your account and the import preview, and convert actual date values if needed.
Can I use the same file for QuickBooks Desktop?
This guide covers the QuickBooks Online bank-transaction CSV workflow. It does not establish compatibility with QuickBooks Desktop, Self-Employed or every regional edition. Follow the instructions for your exact product.
Does the sample contain real bank data?
No. All three transactions are synthetic. Use the sample to inspect columns, dates and signs. Do not add these transactions to your real books.
SOURCES & SCOPE
Column layouts, date guidance and credit-card notes were checked against Intuit's CSV format guide; upload limits were checked against Intuit's manual upload guide on October 7, 2026. Stmtio format details and the synthetic sample were checked against the 0.1.0 exporter, including positive and negative amounts. We have not verified an import in a live QuickBooks account for this article. A successful upload still needs matching, categorization and reconciliation.
FROM PDF TO A REVIEWED CSV
Review the statement before the handoff.
Stmtio processes statement PDFs, extracted text and transactions on your computer, with side-by-side PDF review and CSV/XLSX export. Sign-in, subscription, device registration and page-allowance checks use online services. Uploading a CSV to QuickBooks is a separate action you choose.
Available for Windows x64 and macOS Apple silicon or Intel. Version 0.1.0 supports USD exports; preview installers are unsigned. See data handling details or choose your installer.
Download Stmtio ↗