QBO, QFX, OFX and QIF: what is the difference?

Banks offer statement downloads under several names. Three of them are nearly the same file, and one is a much older format.

Format	Made for	What it is	Duplicate protection
OFX	Any accounting software	Open Financial Exchange: the open standard for bank statements	Yes, each transaction has an ID
QBO	QuickBooks	OFX plus Intuit fields, including a bank ID QuickBooks must recognise	Yes
QFX	Quicken	OFX plus Intuit fields, including a bank ID Quicken must recognise	Yes
QIF	Older personal finance software	Quicken Interchange Format: a simple list of dated amounts and payees	No

OFX: the common base

An OFX file describes one or more accounts and the transactions on them. Every transaction has a posted date, a signed amount, a payee name, an optional memo and a unique ID. Because the layout is fixed, software can import it without asking you to match columns, and the IDs let it skip transactions it has already seen.

QBO and QFX: OFX with a bank ID

QBO and QFX files are OFX files with an extra field, INTU.BID, that names the bank. QuickBooks accepts QBO and Quicken accepts QFX, and each checks the bank ID against its own list of participating institutions. That check is why a perfectly good file from a small bank can be refused, and why renaming a .qfx file to .qbo only sometimes works.

QIF: the older format

QIF predates OFX. It is a plain list: a date line, an amount line, a payee line, and a separator. It has no transaction IDs, no account details and no fixed date format, so importing the same file twice creates duplicates, and day-first and month-first dates can be confused. It survives because it is simple and many programs still read it.

Converting between them

Bank only offers CSV: CSV to QBO, CSV to QFX, CSV to OFX, CSV to QIF.
Bank offers Quicken or OFX downloads but you use QuickBooks: QFX to QBO or OFX to QBO.
Old records in QIF: QIF to QBO.
You want a spreadsheet: QBO, QFX, OFX or QIF to CSV.

Questions and answers

Is a QBO file the same as an OFX file?

Almost. A QBO file is an OFX file with a few extra Intuit fields, including the bank ID that QuickBooks checks before importing.

Can I open these files in Excel?

Not directly. They are text files, but not laid out in columns. Convert them to CSV first with the QBO to CSV, OFX to CSV or QIF to CSV converter.

Which format should I ask my bank for?

Pick the one made for your software: QBO for QuickBooks, QFX for Quicken, OFX for most other accounting software. If your bank does not offer it, download CSV and convert.