To import an Amex statement into QuickBooks, get the month's transactions into a QBO or CSV file, either from a download if Amex offers one for that period or by converting the PDF statement. Then upload it to your credit card account, check that charges and credits go the right way round, and record the payment only once.
Amex download or Amex PDF statement: which to start from?
Start from a download when Amex offers one for the months you need, because a file made by the card issuer needs no reading or conversion. Start from the PDF statement when the months are older than the download reaches or when you need a month that matches the statement exactly.
The two sources suit different jobs:
- A transaction download is best for recent activity. Amex decides which formats and date ranges it offers, and those choices change, so look at the download screen in your own account instead of trusting a guide, this one included.
- A PDF statement is best for a closed month. It covers one billing period, shows the new balance and lists every charge, credit and payment, so you can prove an import against it.
Either source has to end up as a file QuickBooks Online accepts. Intuit lists QBO as its suggested file type for a transaction list, with QFX and CSV also accepted, and sets limits of 350 KB and 1,000 lines per upload; see Intuit's page on uploading transactions manually. A year of busy card activity can pass that line limit, so split a large file by month.
If you only have the PDF, turn it into an import file first. Converting a PDF statement to a QBO file walks through that conversion and the check that proves the totals match.
Which one should you pick?
Use this short rule. If the download covers every month you need, take the download. If any month falls outside it, convert that month's PDF and use the download for the rest. Mixing the two is safe, as long as no day appears in both files. A day in both files is how duplicates get in.
Amex charges, credits and the sign each needs
An import file holds one signed amount per line, and the sign tells QuickBooks which direction the money moved. On a card, a charge raises what you owe and a credit lowers it. A common mistake is to load the statement's own signs without asking how QuickBooks will read them.
Card statements usually print purchases as positive amounts and credits and payments as negative amounts or with a "CR" mark. That runs opposite to a bank-account file, where money out is negative. Look at how your own Amex statement prints each kind of line before you rely on it.
Many import files follow the convention used in the SimpleBankConvert examples: money going out of your pocket is a minus, and money coming back is a plus. Under that convention a charge becomes negative and a refund becomes positive, which is the reverse of how the statement prints them.
A worked example with four lines
Here are four example lines from one made-up statement, shown as the statement prints them and then as import rows. The merchants and amounts are examples only.
| Statement line | Printed as | Import row amount | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 3, Example Office Supply | 86.42 | -86.42 | A charge |
| Mar 9, Example Airline refund | -120.00 | 120.00 | A merchant credit |
| Mar 15, Annual membership fee | 95.00 | -95.00 | A fee, which is a charge |
| Mar 22, Payment received, thank you | -400.00 | 400.00 | A payment to the card |
Read the third row twice. An annual fee is a cost to you, so it takes the same sign as any charge. Fees and interest are the lines people most often flip by mistake, because they are not purchases and feel different.
The payment on the fourth row is the one that needs care, and the last section explains why.
Check the sign before you finish
Do not trust the convention, test it. After you upload, QuickBooks shows each line in a review screen before you accept it. Find one charge you know, such as the office supply purchase, and see whether QuickBooks treats it as money spent. If every line is reversed, the whole file has the wrong sign convention, and you fix it once instead of line by line. Intuit's upload page describes an option to reverse all values for exactly this case.
If you build the file in a spreadsheet, multiply the amount column by minus one to flip it. If it comes from a converter, the converter should do this for you. The SimpleBankConvert homepage says the tool merges separate withdrawal and deposit columns into one amount with money going out shown as a minus. It is in early access, so you can join the early access list to be told when accounts open.
Supplementary cards on one Amex statement
Extra cardholders' purchases appear on the same account, so they belong in the same QuickBooks account. Many card statements list each cardholder's transactions in its own block or mark them with a name, but all of them add to one balance. Import them together, and use the memo to keep track of who spent what.
The common mistakes with a supplementary card are:
- Creating one QuickBooks account per cardholder. The card has one balance and one payment, so one account is right.
- Dropping the cardholder's name. If a person's name is in the description, leave it in. It is useful later when someone asks who bought something.
- Importing one cardholder's block twice. If you download each person's activity separately, check that the same purchase does not appear in two files.
If you need spending by person for management reasons, keep a column for the cardholder in your working spreadsheet, or use a QuickBooks class or tag if you have set those up. Do not split the bank-side import by person, because the card issuer bills you as one account and your records should match the bill.
A cardholder who left the business still leaves charges on the statement. Import them like any others; the statement is the record of what you owe.
Amex statement dates versus posting dates
Use one date consistently, and the date that matches the statement is the safest. A purchase date is when you bought something, and a posting date is when the issuer recorded it. The two can differ by a few days, and across a month end they can fall in different months.
Why this matters: suppose you buy something on March 31 and it posts on April 2. If your file uses the purchase date, the charge sits in March in QuickBooks, but the March statement may not include it, so your March balance won't match the statement. The charge shows on the April statement. The statement and the books then disagree until you work out which line moved.
Follow this routine to avoid it:
- Decide once whether you import purchase dates or posting dates, and write it down.
- When you are reconciling to the statement, match its dates. If the statement lists a charge in April, an April date lets the balance tie.
- Check the first and last days of each month, since that is where dates cross.
- Make sure a charge is not in two monthly files because it sits on the border.
Dates printed without a year need care at New Year. A statement running from late December into January prints lines such as "01/03", and each one belongs to the year its month falls in within the billing period. Check that your file gives January lines the new year, not the old one.
Does a Chase card statement import the same way?
Yes. The steps for a Chase credit card are the same: get the transactions into a file, make charges and credits agree with the convention QuickBooks reads, check a few lines in the review screen, and record the card payment once. Details like the column layout and the way credits print differ by issuer, so check your own statement.
What changes between issuers is small and mostly cosmetic:
- The order of the columns and the names of the headings.
- Whether credits are shown as negative numbers, in brackets or with a CR mark.
- How the statement shows fees, interest and rewards.
- Which transaction date it prints first.
Nothing about the QuickBooks side changes, because QuickBooks only cares about the file. Chase, Amex and any other issuer's statement all end as rows of date, description and signed amount. If you want the whole story of getting card activity in, importing credit card transactions into QuickBooks covers it for any issuer.
Recording the card payment once
The payment you make to the card appears twice: once as money leaving your bank account and once as a credit on the card statement. If you import both without care, QuickBooks records the same payment two times. The answer is to import both sides and let QuickBooks treat them as one transfer, which card payments from your bank recorded once, not twice explains in full.
Banks also hand out their own downloads, and the same idea applies to a checking account. For a bank that offers a QBO file, see downloading a QBO file from Bank of America for the rule on when to use the download and when to convert the PDF. To see what the finished file looks like, the SimpleBankConvert homepage shows a sample.