Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Import Bank Statements Into Quicken

Importing bank statements into Quicken is a great way to keep track of your income and expenses without having to enter all the information manually. Most banks now deal with online financial management, making it easy for their clients to view statements electronically. If you are already a Quicken user, choosing to import your bank statements makes sense.


Instructions


Import Bank Statements Into Quicken


1. Check with your bank to make sure it offers statement downloading and support for Quicken. You need to know this in advance of installing the program.


2. Ask what version of Quicken your bank requires. Most banks will only work with either the current year or the last 2 years of the software.


3. Log on to your Quicken account and open the summary page for your bank. You should have the data for your bank already saved in your Quicken account. If you don't, you will have to save it before you can proceed to importing statements.


4. Make sure you are connected to the Internet, and then choose the "Download" option to get the last statement from your bank to your computer. If you want previous statements as well, you can select a different date. Keep in mind, however, that most banks will only allow you to download a period at a time, so you may have to repeat the procedure until you get all the information you need.


5. Open the "Account Detail" file, and a window should pop up after the download finishes in Quicken versions 2007 or later.


6. Go to "File," and then "Import" to get the downloaded statements into Quicken. If you don't do this, the bank statements will remain in your hard drive, but won't show up when you open Quicken to work on them.


7. Check that you have the right information. The file should be complete, with no missing text. It should include the total monthly balance.


8. Choose the name of the file you want to upload into Quicken, and then click "Save."







Tags: your bank, your Quicken account, bank statements, Bank Statements Into, banks will