Free QIF to Excel Converter for Quicken Files
Turn a Quicken, GnuCash or Moneydance .QIF export into a real .xlsx workbook, with every transaction and each of its splits written as its own row.
It is also the loosest format we read. A QIF will hold a transaction whose parts do not add up to its whole, and for most people this conversion is the first thing that has checked.
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Drop your .QIF file here
Your file is never uploaded. We never receive it or store it.
A QIF Will Let a Transaction Not Add Up
Open a QIF file in Excel by converting it to a workbook first. Every transaction arrives with its date, payee and total, each of its splits sits on a row of its own beside them, and the amount columns are written as numbers you can total. QIF is the loosest format we read, so the conversion checks each transaction's arithmetic on the way through.
A QIF transaction is a total plus a list of splits, and the format does not require the two to agree. Quicken will write one that does not. So will a hand edit, and so will twenty years of a file being carried from one program to the next.
Every split transaction is measured against its own split lines, the payee is named, and the difference is stated to the cent before anything is downloaded.
| Code | Line | Amount | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| T | Example Supplier | -120.00 | The transaction total |
| S | Materials | -80.00 | A split, with its own category |
| S | Tools and Hire | -45.00 | And a second one |
| The splits | -125.00 | What the parts come to | |
| Out by | 5.00 | Named to the cent, by payee |
QIF does not require a transaction's splits to sum to its total, so a file can carry one that never did. Every split transaction is measured against its own parts on the way through, and against nothing outside itself: one entry checked, not a balance carried down a statement.
What a QIF Actually Holds
Taking a QIF file to Excel moves more than a transaction list, and less than a set of books.
Splits Are Real and Plural
One transaction with three S lines becomes three rows, each carrying the parent's date, payee, reference number and total alongside it. Nothing is collapsed into a single line, so a payment coded across four categories stays four rows with four categories on them.
Categories Come From the L and S Lines
The L line is the whole transaction's category and an S line is one split's. A name written in square brackets is a transfer to another account, and the brackets are stripped on the way in so the account reads as a name rather than as punctuation.
It Can Declare Its Own Chart of Accounts
A file that opens a !Type:Cat block is declaring the categories it uses, and those come back as a second sheet beside the transactions. Where the destination takes plain text rather than a workbook, the QIF to CSV Converter reads the same file.
Some Codes Carry Nothing Across
A carries a printed address and F marks a transaction as a reimbursable expense. Neither has a column in a workbook of transactions, so both are read and then left out rather than written as an empty field nobody can use.
How to Convert QIF to Excel
Four steps, and nothing is uploaded: the file is read and the workbook written in your browser.
Drop the .QIF
A Quicken, GnuCash or Moneydance export, or the same file saved with a .txt extension. It is read where it sits, so there is no upload and no sign-up.
.qif · .txt
Set the Account Name
A QIF names an account but carries no account number, so the field starts on the name the file uses for itself and shows it to you as the placeholder. Type over it with the name your books use and every row is written to that instead.
the file's own, or yours
Choose What the Sheets Hold
Combining is on by default: one readable Transactions table with each split beside its parent's date, payee and total. Turn it off, or keep the raw TRNS and SPL tables as well, and those come back as sheets of their own.
one table, or the raw tables too
Read the Warnings, Then Download
The transaction count, the list tables found and every warning raised are shown before the workbook is written rather than discovered once it is open. On this format the out-by lines are the ones worth the second look.
counted and checked first
Fix It Before It Is a Spreadsheet
Four things worth settling first, because a Quicken QIF to spreadsheet conversion copies what it finds.
Name the Account First
A file that names no account at all writes every row to Unspecified Account, and the warnings say so rather than leaving you to notice it in the sheet. Settling the name before you convert saves a find-and-replace down a whole column afterwards.
Read the Out-By Lines
They are warnings rather than errors, so the file converts either way and the workbook opens either way. Each one points at a single transaction in the source, which is where to go back to while it is still a QIF and still easy to find.
Check the Year on Old Files
Quicken writes a two-digit year after an apostrophe, as in 01/02'03, and it is read exactly as written. An export taken out of a twenty-year-old copy of the program is worth spot-checking against a date you already know.
Decide What an Out-By Means
It is a real difference in the source file rather than something the conversion introduced. Correct it where it lives and export again, or annotate the row in the workbook and carry on. The check reports the gap, it does not close it.
How Many More QIF Exports Are Coming?
A file you convert once is one job. Leaving the program behind is a different one.
| Need | Free converter | Autymate |
|---|---|---|
| One export you want to read in Excel | Name the account, read the warnings, take the workbook | Nothing here is worth arranging |
| Every account in the old program, one file each | The account named again, and the warnings read again, per file | Sources mapped once and reused across accounts where the interfaces allow |
| The same transactions failing to add up in every export | Named on screen one file at a time, and corrected by hand | Checks applied before the data lands, with a named owner for what does not pass |
| The workbook is the middle step, not the destination | The cleanup, the mapping and the upload still happen afterwards | What happens after the spreadsheet belongs to the same run |
| Years of history moved in one go | One file at a time, in whatever order they were exported | Period boundaries agreed before any of it is loaded |
What the Conversion Will Not Do
Reading a file correctly is not the same as fixing what is inside it.
It Reports the Difference, It Does Not Close It
An out-by transaction converts like any other. Its total and its splits are written exactly as the file states them, and the warning names the payee and the amount. Closing the gap means changing the source and exporting again, and that part is yours.
A QIF With Nothing to Convert
A file holding only categories or memorised payees has no transactions in it at all. You get a message saying so rather than an empty workbook, which is the difference between knowing and wondering why the sheet is blank.
Investment Activity Does Not Survive
Buys, sells, dividends and share counts are written with codes a workbook of bank transactions has no columns for, so those lines are read and then left out. A brokerage export is the wrong file for this page rather than a file it half converts.
It Does Not Reconcile Anything Else
The check is one transaction against its own splits and nothing wider than that. It is not a running balance and it is not a comparison with your bank or with your accounting system. Where a statement prints a balance after every line, the Bank Statement Converter is the tool that checks it.
Common Questions
What people ask before they trust a converter with their accounting system.
No. Excel has no QIF import of its own: Get Data and the Text Import wizard read delimited text, XML and a handful of database sources, and QIF is none of those. The usual workaround is to save a CSV in between, which leaves Excel guessing at every column, so account numbers lose their leading zeros and long reference numbers turn into scientific notation. Converting straight to a workbook removes the guesswork by removing the CSV.
Opening it and reading it are two different jobs, so how to open a QIF file depends on which one you want. It is plain text, so any text editor shows you the contents: one letter per line and a caret closing each transaction. To work with the data, open it in a program that writes the format, such as Quicken, GnuCash or Moneydance, or convert it here and open the workbook in Excel.
Quicken, which gave the format its name, along with GnuCash, Moneydance, Banktivity, AceMoney, Money Manager EX and older versions of Microsoft Money. It is the oldest interchange format personal-finance software still broadly agrees on, which is why a file exported to get data out of one of those programs is so often a QIF even now.
Quicken Interchange Format: a plain-text file in which every line opens with a one-letter code and every transaction closes with a caret on a line of its own. D is the date, T the total, P the payee, L the category, and S, E and $ describe one split. There is no schema and no header row, which is what makes a QIF both easy to write and easy to write badly.
Yes, with one change worth knowing about. QIF states a split amount from the account's own side, and every split is negated on the way in so it sits opposite the transaction total rather than repeating it. A split you remember as 80.00 going out appears in the workbook as 80.00 on the other side, and the two rows still describe one payment.
No. The QIF is read on your own computer and the workbook is written there too, so nothing reaches a server and there is nothing for anyone to receive, store or delete. Closing the tab is the whole of the cleanup.
Written and maintained by The Autymate integrations team. We build and run accounting integrations for multi-location franchises, ISVs and bookkeeping firms: QuickBooks Desktop and Online, POS, payroll and ERP. These converters exist because we kept writing the same ones for customers, and there was no reason to keep them to ourselves.
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Leaving a Program Takes More Than an Export
One QIF, converted once and read in Excel, is a job this page finishes. Moving years of records off desktop software is a different one: every account, every period, and something on the other side that has to agree with what arrives. Tell us where the data starts, what has to receive it, and how much history is in play.
Exact source access, fields, permissions, QuickBooks behaviour and service scope are confirmed during discovery.