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What is an IIF file?
A plain-text file that QuickBooks Desktop imports straight into your books. Powerful, and easy to get wrong. Here is how it works and how to use it safely.
Short answer
An IIF file is a tab-separated text file that QuickBooks Desktop imports straight into your books. It can carry lists, such as customers and accounts, and transactions, such as checks and deposits. There is no review step and no duplicate check, so you back up your company file first and import each file once. QuickBooks Online can’t use IIF at all.
- Extension
- .iif
- Full name
- Intuit Interchange Format
- Made for
- QuickBooks Desktop only
- Review before posting
- No
What’s inside an IIF file
IIF stands for Intuit Interchange Format. It is a table in text form: header rows name the columns, and each row after that is one line of a transaction. A transaction from a bank statement looks like this:
sample-transactions.iifOpened as plain text
- 1
!TRNS→TRNSTYPE→DATE→ACCNT→NAME→AMOUNT→DOCNUM→MEMO→CLEAR !SPL→TRNSTYPE→DATE→ACCNT→NAME→AMOUNT→DOCNUM→MEMO→CLEAR!ENDTRNS- 2
TRNS→DEPOSIT→09/01/2026→Checking→→4200.00→→ACME LTD PAYROLL SEP REF 88213→N - 3
SPL→DEPOSIT→09/01/2026→Ask My Accountant→→-4200.00→→ACME LTD PAYROLL SEP REF 88213→N - 4
ENDTRNS - 5
TRNS→CHECK→09/02/2026→Checking→→-1850.00→→DD HARBOUR PROPERTIES RENT 02SEP→N SPL→CHECK→09/02/2026→Ask My Accountant→→1850.00→→DD HARBOUR PROPERTIES RENT 02SEP→NENDTRNS- … six more transactions, three lines each …
- Header rows. They start with
!and name the columns for the rows below: transaction type, date, account, name, amount, number, memo and whether it has cleared. Every value after that sits in a column, separated by a tab (shown here as →). - The first half of a transaction: $4,200 into the
Checkingaccount, as a deposit. - The second half: the same $4,200, the other way round, in a second account. The two lines add up to zero. This is double-entry bookkeeping written out in full; our converter uses
Ask My Accountantas a holding account unless you type another. - The end of the transaction.
- Our converter writes money out as a check and money in as a deposit, whatever kind of payment it was: card, direct debit or transfer.
The part people find odd is that every transaction appears twice. In plain words, the first line says where the money went in or out (your bank account) and the second says what it was for (another account). QuickBooks needs both halves to keep your books in balance, which is why the amounts are opposites.
What an IIF file can import
Intuit lists two kinds of data an IIF file can carry into QuickBooks Desktop:
- Lists: the chart of accounts, customers, vendors, employees, items and similar.
- Transactions: checks, deposits, invoices, bills, estimates, purchase orders and others.
Two limits matter for bank imports. IIF doesn’t link transactions, so an imported payment won’t be matched to the invoice it paid; you link those yourself afterwards. And IIF files don’t carry a bank’s transaction IDs, so QuickBooks can’t tell when you import the same transactions a second time.
How to import an IIF file safely
- Back up the company file. File › Back Up Company › Create Local Backup. If the import goes wrong, restoring this backup is your undo.
- Check the account names. Every name in the file’s account column must match your chart of accounts exactly, sub-accounts included. A name QuickBooks doesn’t recognise becomes a new account.
- Import. On Windows: File › Utilities › Import › IIF Files, then pick the file. On a Mac: File › Import › From IIF Files.
- Let QuickBooks check it. In QuickBooks Desktop 2019 and later, choose the option that reviews the file. Intuit advises against “Import it for me. I’ll fix it later”, which skips the check. Rows that fail are saved to a new IIF file with the reason beside each one.
- Look at the register. Open the bank account and compare the imported transactions and the ending balance with your statement.
Import each file once
There is no duplicate check. Importing the same file twice enters every transaction twice, and you would have to delete them one by one or restore the backup.
IIF or Web Connect for bank transactions?
QuickBooks Desktop takes bank transactions from two kinds of file. It doesn’t import a bank’s CSV at all, which Intuit’s own staff confirm in its community forum.
| Web Connect (.qbo) | IIF | |
|---|---|---|
| Goes into | Bank Feeds, for you to review, match and add | Your books directly |
| Duplicates | Skipped, by the bank’s transaction ID | Not detected |
| Categories | Chosen by you, or by your bank rules | Set in the file |
| Best for | Regular monthly imports | Old history in bulk, once |
For most people Web Connect is the safer choice. Our QuickBooks Desktop import guide walks through both, and the QBO file guide explains Web Connect files.
Moving to QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online doesn’t read IIF. If you are moving a whole company from Desktop to Online, use Intuit’s own move tool rather than files. If you only need one account’s bank transactions in Online, convert the IIF to a QBO file and upload it; you pick the account in the IIF, and each transaction’s other half becomes its category in the converted file.
Read an IIF file in Excel
Drop an .iif file here to get one account’s transactions as a spreadsheet, one row each, with date, name, memo, category and amount. It runs in your browser; the file is never uploaded.
No file to hand?
Convert to
Tally needs both ledger names exactly as they are in your company.
New company? Download the ledger setup file too and import it first (Import, then Masters).QuickBooks Desktop needs both account names exactly as they are in your chart of accounts.
QuickBooks makes any account it doesn’t know into a new bank account, so check the spelling.Going the other way? Make an IIF from a CSV, an Excel file or a bank statement PDF.
IIF compared with the other formats
| Format | Made for | Inside | Bank’s ID per transaction | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QBO | QuickBooks Online and Desktop | OFX plus Intuit’s bank ID | Yes | Bank feed, to review |
| QFX | Quicken | OFX plus Intuit’s bank ID | Yes | Quicken’s downloads, to review |
| OFX | Xero, Sage, MYOB, GnuCash and most others | Tagged text, an open standard | Yes | The app’s import screen |
| QIF | Quicken, GnuCash, Banktivity, older apps | One field per line | No | Straight into the register |
| IIF | QuickBooks Desktop only | Tab-separated rows | No | Straight into the books |
The bank’s ID on each transaction is what lets software skip transactions it already has. Without it, importing the same file twice means doubles.
Questions
Can I undo an IIF import?
Not with an undo button. The transactions go straight into your company file, so the clean way back is to restore the backup you made just before importing. That is why Intuit tells you to back up first.
Does QuickBooks Online import IIF files?
No. IIF is for QuickBooks Desktop on Windows and Mac only. For bank transactions, convert the IIF to a QBO file and upload that to QuickBooks Online.
Why did my IIF import create new accounts?
An account name in the file didn’t exactly match one in your chart of accounts, so QuickBooks created a new account with that name. Check spelling, spaces and sub-account names, delete or merge the stray accounts, and fix the names in the file before importing again.
Can I open an IIF file in Excel?
Yes, as tab-separated text: each value lands in its own column, header rows included. It is readable but awkward, because each transaction is spread over three rows. Converting it gives one clean row per transaction.
Does Intuit still support IIF?
QuickBooks Desktop 2019 and later have an improved IIF import that checks the file and saves the rows it couldn’t import into a separate file. But Intuit says it doesn’t offer technical support for creating or importing IIF files.
Can I make an IIF file from a bank statement PDF?
Yes. A bank statement to IIF converter reads the PDF and writes each transaction as a check or deposit between the two accounts you name. Ours checks every row against the statement’s balances first.
Sources
Read on 6 October 2026. Software changes its menus often; if a step here no longer matches what you see, please tell us at hello@safebankstatementconverter.com and we will fix it.
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Related guides and converters.
Guides
- Import into QuickBooks DesktopWeb Connect (.qbo) or IIF: which to use, and the steps for each.
- What is a QBO file?QuickBooks’ bank download format: what is inside, what opens it, and common import errors.
- What is a QIF file?The old plain-text format Quicken made popular, and where it still works.
- Import into QuickBooks OnlineUpload QBO, QFX, CSV or PDF files, with the limits and the fixes.
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