Import Statements and Reconcile with Attachments in QuickBooks Online
One of my favorite features in Quicken was the ability to attach statements to bank and credit card accounts. When Quicken was sold by Intuit to an investment firm, I converted my Quicken file to QuickBooks Online (QBO). One of the best features in QBO is the ability to attach files, up to 20MB, to each transaction. However, there has been no way to attach statements to any account in the Chart of Accounts like you can attach documents to Customers and Vendors. I requested this feature years ago and while it has not been implemented, the team at Intuit created something even better.
Statement Import
While some features have only been rolled out to some QBO accounts, it looks like bank and credit card accounts connected in Banking will automatically have their bank statements imported into QBO. This is found on the Reconcile screen as shown above. I have not seen any accounts yet that have had statements already imported automatically.
I am assuming this will happen because there is an Unreconciled tab when clicking on the View statements button. This is a wonderful way to help bookkeepers and accountants that reconcile their clients’ accounts in that they will no longer have to ask for statements.
Attach Statements
The View statements button doesn’t show up until after an account has been reconciled (or maybe when statements can be imported automatically) and an attachment has been added after clicking on the Attach statement button.
This pop up shows up on the right side of the History by account screen for the account that was just reconciled. The options to either Drag and drop or browse to upload are the same as other attachments.
This type of attachment is unique in that is not linked to a transaction or list item but rather to an activity, the Reconciliation. I also like how I can add attachments to previous reconciliations. What is currently missing is the ability to batch export (download) attached statements, as they are not listed in the Attachment page. Or it would be nice to be able to do this in History by account screen.
Save Attachments to Customers and Vendors in QuickBooks Online
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You provided the feedback and they listened! Yes, it's true. Using the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of QuickBooks Online (QBO) there is an extremely important and useful feature under Your Company called
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Attachments in QBO is a much needed function for a cloud-based software. Having the ability to snap photos from the mobile app or scan receipts saved as PDFs that can be attached to transactions in QBO is essential for record-keeping. Being a completely paperless business, I scan everything into specific folders in
, with my current year receipt folder synced to my desktop into which I use a scanner that saves PDFs. But that's a whole other process which I was go over in a later post!
One of the latest updates to QBO has been the addition of attachments to Customers and Vendors. When you edit a customer (or client, donor, or other type you have set up in the settings), there is now an attachments tab. Here you can either click in the box/icon or drag and drop files to attach one or more files. You can attach practically anything: contracts, Excel spreadsheets, photos, you name it. And there is a generous 25MB limit for all the stuff you can attach to one customer. I thought this limit was above and beyond what was need to attach just one PDF receipt to an expense, but being able to attach multiple files is necessary in a lot of cases, such as attaching contracts, outlines, photos, etc. to estimates or merchant processing receipts, delivery tickets, etc. to invoices and sales receipts, which can then selectively be sent to a customer via email. I could see how attachments could be useful for vendors too, such as adding sales tax exemption certificates, W-9s for 1099 contractors, and so forth.
Unfortunately, the ability to add attachments to Accounts wasn't added in this update. I have been asking for this option and consider it the most important since I would like to be able to attach PDFs of bank statements or credit card statements that have been used for reconciliations. Or maybe you would like to attach loan statements or bills of sale for long term liabilities or fixed assets. Hopefully, Intuit is working on this functionality. If not, please send your own feedback so that they know this is important enough to add sooner than later. Currently, I am just uploading PDFs to the Attachment center and then editing them to say "Statement" in the Notes. This way, I can at least sort by the Note column to find all my statements, but it is still a pain to have to do this along with sorting by Name to find a particular statement.