QIF import creates the wrong account type

The type header

A QIF file opens by declaring what it contains:

!Type:Bank

The common values are Bank for a current or checking account, CCard for a credit card, Cash for petty cash, and Oth A and Oth L for other assets and liabilities. The importer creates or matches an account of that type.

Why the wrong type inverts your signs

A bank account is an asset and a credit card is a liability, so a positive amount means opposite things on each. Import a credit-card statement as !Type:Bank and every charge reads as money coming in.

The totals stay plausible, which is what makes this expensive to find later. Nothing fails; the account simply behaves as though the month went unusually well.

Why a new account appears

Most importers match an existing account by name and type together. A file whose type does not match creates a new account rather than reporting a conflict — so the transactions are not missing, they are in an account you did not expect and may not have noticed.

If transactions have "disappeared" after a QIF import, look at the account list before looking at the file.

The other QIF trap: dates

QIF writes the date on a D line and says nothing about its order. Quicken and most other importers interpret it in the running machine’s locale, so the same file means different things on a US and a UK computer.

Fixing a file you already have

1. 1Open the .qif in a text editor. It is plain text.
2. 2Change the !Type: line to the correct type.
3. 3Delete the account created by the bad import, and its transactions, before importing again — otherwise you will have both.
4. 4Import, and check the sign of the first few transactions against the statement before doing anything else.

The !Account block, and why it helps

A QIF file may open with an account block naming the account the transactions belong to, before the type header:

!Account
NBusiness Current
TBank
^
!Type:Bank

With it, the importer knows which account is meant rather than inferring one from the type. Without it, a file of type Bank imported into a program with three bank accounts goes wherever the importer decides — which is the other route to transactions appearing somewhere unexpected.

Categories, and the bracket convention

The L line carries the category for a transaction. A plain name is a category; a name in square brackets is another account, which makes the entry a transfer rather than income or expenditure.

LOffice Expenses      <- a category
L[Savings Account]    <- a transfer

A converter that writes bracketed values by accident creates transfers to accounts that do not exist, and importers respond by creating them. If unfamiliar accounts appeared after an import, this is worth checking alongside the type header.