Online Banking: Updating your register

When you use online banking, you either import or download transactions from your financial institution. Some of those transactions may already be in QuickBooks, but some may not be. Updating your register means:

  • You add any transaction from your financial institution that isn’t already in QuickBooks.
  • You match the transactions from your financial institution with transactions in QuickBooks.

Your goal is to make sure that all downloaded transactions are correctly entered into your account register.

Example of updating your register

Here’s an example of what updating your register means. Say over the course of a month, you’ve bought office supplies and paid for the printing of your client’s brochure with the credit card you use for your business. You entered payment to the printer into QuickBooks, but not the office supplies purchase.

Now when you download your credit card transactions into QuickBooks, you can match the payment to the printer that in your downloaded transactions to the one that’s already in your register. (It’s in your register because you entered the payment in QuickBooks.) And as for the office supplies purchase that’s in your downloaded transaction but not in QuickBooks, you can add that transaction to the register.

Downloading or importing your transactions

Before you can download or import transactions, you must set up online banking in QuickBooks.

To download or import your transactions:

  1. Choose Banking > Downloaded Transactions.
  2. On the Downloaded Transactions window, select the account you want to import or download transactions for. For example, select Checking to download your checking account transactions from your financial institution.
  3. Click Download.
    • Ifyou’reusingWebConnect,QuickBookstakesyoutoyourfinancialinstitution’swebsiteto download your transaction file. Then click Import to import the file into QuickBooks.
    • Ifyou’reusingDirectConnect,QuickBooksdownloadstransactionsfromtheaccountatyour financial institution directly into QuickBooks.

What to do with matched transactions

Select the matched transaction in the Downloaded Transactions window. QuickBooks automatically selects the same transaction in the account register.

Now, do one of the following:

  • If QuickBooks correctly matched the imported transaction to a transaction in your account register, you’re done! QuickBooks marks the transaction as cleared in the register and as Matched in the Downloaded Transactions window.
  • If QuickBooks incorrectly matched the transaction, click Unmatch.To delete the transaction from the Downloaded Transactions window, click Delete.

What to do with unmatched transactions

Select the unmatched transaction in the Downloaded Transactions window. Then do one of the following:

  • Match the transaction with a transaction in the register. Select the transaction in the register you want to match, and then click Match. The amount in both transactions must match exactly, and if there is a check number or reference number, they must match exactly. QuickBooks marks the transaction as cleared in the register and as Matched in the Downloaded Transactions window.
  • Add transactions as new transactions in the account register. Select an unmatched transaction, and click Add One to add just that one transaction to the register. Or you can click Add Multiple to add all the transactions from that payee. QuickBooks creates new transactions in the account register and pre-fills the payee and amount fields. Enter the rest of the transaction details, and then click Record. Be sure to complete and record this new transaction. You will be unable to continue matching from Downloaded Transactions until you have do.
  • Delete the transaction from the Downloaded Transactions window. Select the transaction and click Delete.

Other things to know about matching transactions

  • Close the Downloaded Transactions window when you’re done. QuickBooks asks if you want to remove the matched transactions from the Downloaded Transactions window; click Remove. The next time you open the Downloaded Transactions window, only unmatched transactions will appear.
  • Use renaming rules for different payees who are really the same vendor. So if you’ve bought services from three different locations of one vendor, they probably appear as three different payees in your downloaded transaction. You can use renaming rules to rename the payees to the same vendor.

About Shelly King

Shelly King works for Intuit as a member of the QuickBooks for Mac team. She’s the Managing Editor for Little Square and its main contributor. Shelly grew up in the South until 1994 when the Internet called her to Silicon Valley. She’s done a lot on the web ever since. Little Square was her idea. Yep, it’s all her fault. See all of Shelly's articles

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