 Zero Accounting Software 2023 Download Bank Feed Transactions From The Bank Get ready to become an Accountant Hero with Zero 2023 Here we are at first a word from our sponsor Well, actually these are just items that we picked from the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program But that's actually good for you Because these aren't things that were just given to us from some large corporation Which we don't even use in exchange for us selling them to you These are things that we actually researched, purchased and used ourselves Acer 27 inch monitor I've been using an Acer monitor as my primary monitor for a few years now This is the first Acer monitor that I have used After having used a series of different brands of monitors in the past The Acer monitor has been performing well And I'm trusting the Acer brand more and more as I use the monitor I have a 27 inch monitor which I think is ideal for what I do Which is of course the screen recording and the editing If you would like a commercial free experience Consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com Or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com Where we have many different courses You can purchase one at a time Or have a subscription model Giving you access to all the courses Courses which are well organized Have other resources like Excel files and PDF files to download And no commercials In our custom zero home page going into the company file We set up in a prior presentation the bank feed file Now in prior presentations we set up a bank type of account Without actually connecting to the bank feeds Because we want to download the information from the bank And import it into the zero system for our practice problem So you will recall that if I go to the accounting dropdown We went into the chart of accounts And we have our bank account set up here You can also set up your bank account By going to the accounting dropdown And going into the bank accounts And they have their special area Because the bank accounts are special Now if you hadn't had this set up Then the way to set up the bank accounts Is you have to hit that add bank account item If you want to be connecting Or not connect to the bank feeds You still kind of have to mimic As though you're connecting to the bank feeds here And the next question will be Do you want us to pull in the bank feeds? And in our case we're going to say no Because we want to pull this information in manually To the system Now after you've manually pulled the information Into the system at some later time You may then want to set up the bank feeds You might be manually pulling the data into the system For example because it'll be easier to go back further For the bank feeds Because of the bank that you're at Or something like that But in our case we want to pull the information in With an upload Rather than connecting directly to the bank For our practice problem purposes And so we'll show how to do that So if I go to the account dropdown And back to the bank account We have our bank account information Because nothing's in it here Not the manual import If you don't see the manual import there Sometimes there's different ways You can get to that same area So you have import a statement here And the dropdown as well If I go into that import of the statement Basically it says statement And when I see that statement I kind of feel like it's going to be Importing the month end PDF file But that's not really what we're looking for here We're importing the data file That would be the transactions That we're going to be importing into the system So we'll take a look at what that data Looks like in a second But we have here import bank transactions Has been updated with new features And a new look You can now review the transactions Before importing and upload With more date formats And file types So they've made some updates there That's good, prepare for upload So you can download bank statements From your online banking as Now here's the point You don't see PDF file here That's what people usually think When you think of bank statement So their preferred format is this OFX Not all of your bank accounts Might not all have that format You've got a QFX, a QIF Most banks are probably going to have this QBO So if they don't have these formats over here They probably have the QBO Which you might think QuickBooks Online Now this is a QuickBooks Online data format So it's not, even though this says QBO It's not really a QBO software It's the data format for the banks That was originally kind of designed I guess by QuickBooks Online In order to upload But it's really just a stripped down format of data So that's one that you will commonly Be able to download if you don't see The OFX from your bank And then if you don't have any of those Or sometimes you might just prefer To use a CSV file Which is a comma deliminated file Which you can open in Excel And that one gives you a lot of variation That you can change kind of the CSV file Now alternatively You can create your own statement With your own CSV template So in other words If you wanted to Make up data or something like that And put it into the system An uploader for practice Or something like that These are going to be the formats The headers that you would want in it Notice when I opened a CSV file It opened using Excel Even though the file type is actually A CSV file Now I'll talk more about that in a second But when you go to your bank account Just note that you're trying to If you're trying to download data from the bank These are the file types that you're looking for Trying to download the PDF bank statement Because that's not the format That's going to be uploaded You're really looking for the data That you're going to be uploading From the bank So let's go back into a PowerPoint And just take a look at, for example If you were to log into a bank Such as a Wells Fargo bank If you go into your accounts You will typically find something in most banks That says something like Download account activity It's not going to be oftentimes in the same place As you know, download your bank statements Because when you're downloading your bank statements It's got that extreme cutoff date And you're looking at PDF type files So usually somewhere else You're going to find the capacity to download The actual transactions And then you'll have something like this Which will generally give you a date range And the capacity to download So here it says for the select account You can download up to 18 months Of previous account history Note that there's often a limitation With how far back you can go When you're pulling the information from the bank I'm not sure exactly why They have these kind of limitations You might be able to contact the bank If you need to in some cases If you want to upload like five years of data Or something like that And see if you can get access further back This is also one of the limitations That may require you in practice To instead of connecting to the bank At least at first download the information From the institution because sometimes When you connect directly to the bank They won't let you go as far back With the automatic connections As if you download from the bank I'm not sure exactly why that would be the case But that might be a limiting factor sometimes So then you've got the range The range is going to be very important Because of course the You don't want to pull in information That's already in the system So if you had bank feeds in the past Or if you had a bank accounting transactions Happened in the past You want to make sure that you have A clear delineation of the last transaction From the prior accounting system Whatever you were doing as you were pulling data in And the current system that you're pulling data in So that you don't get those duplicated transactions And so that you don't miss transactions As you pull the data in So once you've got that date formatted correctly Notice here we've got a couple options We've got Quicken Quicken's not even one of the options It's kind of like a similar to Quicken And QuickBooks used to be owned by the same company But they're not anymore So they're totally different now And then you've got the QuickBooks Now this is that QBO file So this is one that would work fine Generally you would think You could download the QBO file Even though it's like a QuickBooks online format It's really just a data file We're not talking about the software of QuickBooks online So that one is one that I think we can use And we'll actually use that one in our practice problem But you can also use the comma deliminated file And this is the one that can be opened With basically an Excel And if you don't have anything else Then this is probably the one that pretty much Any bank will have They should give you an option to open things up With a comma deliminated type of file Although sometimes the comma deliminated file Gets a little bit tricky Because the header rows May not be exactly what zero wants So that's why sometimes these other formats If you have access to them Are easier to upload But the comma deliminated file Often works just fine Alright, so if I look at these files This is what the QBO file looks like It looks like a QuickBooks online Actual software Like the desktop icon If you were to download this file But this file isn't the QuickBooks online software It's actually simply the data file That is just bank data Clean format that can easily be Upload to something like a zero So if I right click on this And we look at the properties of this You could see it's a QuickBooks OFXdata.qbo file So that's one format that's quite common That you'll have at a bank This is an example of a CSV file Now if I right click on this And open it Or if I look at the properties It looks like an Excel file I'm going to open it with Excel But you can see it's actually a comma Separated values file A .csv file So that's important because If you wanted to make your own Kind of data files You could open an Excel file And then save it as a CSV file Converting it from Excel to CSV So that you can practice with your data That's one way that you wanted to practice Now if I open this CSV file This is the kind of data That's going to be pulling in to the system So it's important to kind of It's very useful at least to have an idea Of exactly what is being pulled in To the zero system And then think about what is not being pulled in What's going to have to be added In order for us to move the data From bank feed limbo, the holding place Within zero to helping us To create our financial statements Using this information So clearly when you're talking about The bank account data Notice if I'm pulling in the transactions I, one, don't have the beginning balance I'm not pulling in the beginning balance Because I'm pulling in the transactions That are happening So you have that beginning balance problem Because you can't pull in You're not pulling in You're not trying to get your Ending balance and cash correct You're trying to get all the data in there Because that's going to help build your income statement As well as your balance sheet So that's one thing to note as you pull the data in You'll have to have this beginning balance issue We'll talk about And then also We don't have the actual accounts That are being assigned What we have possibly is Bank transaction Memo data Depending on how the transaction happens So what do we actually have We've got the date of the transaction This is not the date that we facilitate If it was a check for example There could be a big difference between When we wrote the check And when the check cleared the bank This date column is when the check cleared the bank Now if you're dealing with electronic transfers Then this will be pretty close To the time that you actually did The electronic transfer Because they only take One to three days to clear So not a big deal So that's why the electronic transfers Are usually a great tool to use The bank fees to build your books But if you're writing checks Then there's a big difference between This date and the date that you Wrote the check Which is why you're typically going to Want to still do a full service Accounting system entering the check And then clearing it with the bank feeds And using the bank feeds as a reconciliation Then we have the increases and decreases Obviously that's all the bank knows They know the date that it Hit their side and they know Whether it increased or decreased Your checking account So we have the dollar amount That could be used to help us to match Out to transactions we put on our side Or to create transactions And then we have the bank memo Data kind of stuff Now in this category you might include Like check numbers, if you wrote checks You may have a check number But if you're not writing any checks And everything's an electronic transfer You're not going to have a check number But usually within the electronic transfer There's a big mess of data That is often useful To help pull the information From here into zero Because within this mess of data There's usually something like Amazon.com That can tell you who the Vendor or customer is That's why the bank transfers Electronic transactions are ideal For bank feeds because That they usually give you that added Bit of information In the memo That you can then use to create the contact Customer or vendor Now you have to still do that This memo is not going to automatically Create the customer or vendor So we still have to do that That's what we have to add then We've got to add the customer and the vendor That's what zero doesn't know That's why we have to put it in bank feed limbo And then we have to add the Account that it's going to be going to Which we'll usually be able to figure out By who the customer Or vendor is Once we figure that stuff out Then we can create bank rules So that in the future We have it just do the same thing This is where Amazon went last time Now you know, now you know zero Because I made a rule If it's coming from Amazon You put it whatever to supplies And the vendor is Amazon That means the first month of data input Is going to be quite tedious Compared to hopefully future months If you set up your accounting correctly The future months will be A whole lot easier To do Your data input in If you set up your accounts incorrectly In the first few months You will have a mess A complete and utter mess So it's important to think it through Once you pull in the bank feeds And get it right The first few months it will save you a lot of time Trying to recreate things After you already have all this data Going to different accounts and whatnot In the future So that's what we'll pull this information In a future presentation And then start adding it from Bank Feed Limbo