Solved

Quickbooks refuses to accept my paypal CSV file is good

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 30, 2020
3 replies
0 views

I have spent 7 hours today trying to upload my CSV file today. I have spent an hour on chat support and eventually Claudio R said I needed to follow this guide and that he was not trained on CSV imports.

I had actually been using that guide. but the file wouldn't upload.

I then spent over an hour on phone support and first of all they denied it was a csv file without even looking at it. Quickbooks displays this error every time I try to upload, after many format changes and various tweaks of the data

Something’s not quite right

Error while reading the file. Verify that file type is CSV.

Eventually she gave up and told me to ask paypal to check their downloads were good.

Is anyone available to look at my file and see if there is a basic error with it. The support did not do any fundamental checks

QuickBooks Online

Best answer by hugheskerry

Quickbooks support used to be great. As anyone reading this thread can see... they now.. are not.

After 4 months of headache and well over 40hrs invested, I stumbled upon the simple (maddeningly simple) solution:

- IF YOUR CSV FILE ENDS IN ALL CAPS, LOWER THEM TO LOWERCASE. (i.e. "paypal-export.CSV" will not work; "paypal-export.csv" will)

Why not a single support agent or QA tester could locate this solution is beyond me.

Wow, I just found (after 3 hours of troubleshooting and following the endless suggestions of formatting from the quickbooks support team) that the issue was that the extension of my file was .CSV instead of .csv It is beyond me too that not one of the support people knew anything about it. Thanks so much for posting this fix.

M

mv32

Thanks for posting to the Community, @richgilb.

If you use the 3-column template, make sure that it has a negative sign on the Amount column (e.g. -100) to mark the value of the transaction as spent.

Besides, if you use the 4-column template, spent should on the Credits side and received is on the Debit side.

Make sure the columns are in order, and the dates' format is correct and save it as a comma delimited file. It will ensure the transactions are in order.

I've added an article as your reference on how to import bank transactions in QuickBooks Online: Import bank transactions using Excel CSV files.

Also, you can refer to this article on how to categorize the transactions you have uploaded: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Please let me know if you need further help. I'm always here to guide you. Have a good one!

R

richgilbAuthor

Step 1. Follow your guide (like I did all day yesterday) and created this file:

https://snipboard.io/jpRA2X.jpg

Step 2. Follow your guide (like I did all day yesterday) and saved as this file type:

https://snipboard.io/No8X5J.jpg

Step 3: Follow your guide (like I did all day yesterday) and tried unsuccessfully to upload the file:

https://snipboard.io/4qPBY1.jpg

Please also note that your colleague over the phone told me to ask paypal to have a look at their systems when my accountant is able to upload my file in her version of Quickbooks. Consequently, we tried different browsers and then different computers. Does not work. My conclusion is either my account is not correctly set up or there is a bug in your software.

It's time you all stopped pushing bad or the same suggestions on me. So please, no more links and have you tried this and that comments. I have 2 professionals working on this for me also. They have yet to resolve it and it is costing me money just to work out how to upload a file. Therefore, it's time for you to take a copy of the file, try to upload it into my account and then tell me what was wrong. I don't care what policy you have regarding getting involved in uploading the data. It's the only help I need now.

Then we can all move on.

Please advise.

R

Rea_M

I appreciate you for following the guidelines on how to upload your Paypal CSV file to your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account and for providing screenshots above, @richgilb. This way, I can provide you an accurate solution to your concern.

You're on the right track in preparing your Paypal CSV file. To successfully import your Paypal transactions, you should format your CSV file correctly. Here are the things you need to consider:

Remove zeroes from the file and leave those cells blank.
Correct any transactions that display a number in the Description column.
Remove the word amount if it appears in the name of the Credit or Debit column.
Correct and standardise the Date format to a single layout (for example, dd/mm/yyyy).
Some banks provide the day of the week and include it in the Date column. To correct this, split the date and the day of the week into two separate columns

If you're still unable to upload after having the correct format and extension, I'd suggest contacting our QuickBooks Online Support team again. They have the tool to securely verify your account and check why you're unable to perform the process. They can also walk you through on how to successfully upload the file.

After the importing process, you can now assign and categorise your transactions. The system analyses all the information received from Paypal to give you the best possible suggestions for accepting them. For the detailed steps, kindly refer to this article: Assign, categorise, edit, and add your downloaded banking transactions. It contains instructions on how to review downloaded transactions, assign multiple categories, billable customers, and add attachments to name a few.

Please let me know if you have other concerns. I'm just around to help.

G

GlinetteC

Thanks for joining this thread, Lance.

Let me provide additional information about uploading a CSV file in QuickBooks Online. If you go along with the instructions on importing bank transactions from a CSV file to QuickBooks, and yet you're unable to import them successfully, you may consider checking these few things before trying it again.

Make sure you've chosen the correct columns in the mapping stage. Otherwise, QBO will not be able to read the data. Consider deleting the columns you don't need. QBO only requires the Date, Description, and Amount.
Not all banks create their CSV files the same way, so you may need to make extra changes to get your transactions in. A few things to consider looking for are currency symbols and commas, special characters in the bank description, date format should match the one you chose at the mapping stage.
Money out transactions only.

You'll want to check the common errors for importing bank transactions using CSV for more details.

I'd appreciate it if you'd update me about this. I want to make sure this is taken care of.

S

Society of Play

Confirmed that changing the .CSV file extension to lowercase fixes the problem.