Editor's Note: Intuit recently released its QuickBooks Desktop 2023 line-up. Murph has been evaluating various pre-release versions of these products for almost a year, spending hours communicating with Intuit personnel so we can help you learn about the new products. This is the sixty in our series of individual product articles intended to provide additional content to what can be found in our QuickBooks Desktop 2023 Product Summary.
About Improved Banking Connectivity
More than 350,000 businesses using QuickBooks Desktop download their bank and credit card transactions using the traditional bank connectivity methods via bank servers offered by QuickBooks Desktop.
Historically, these traditional methods involved screen-scraping the information from online banking websites. Screen-scraping requires customers to provide their online banking access credentials, and for the QuickBooks application to log in on behalf of the customer and utilize an automated script to read the information online.
As login requirements or bank site designs would change, these connections would break and need to be fixed by receiving new credentials from the customer and updating scripts.
This method also meant that customers’ login credentials were shared, creating privacy, security and financial loss risks for the customer, and where banks provide guarantees for online transactions, for the banks.
As a result, many banks have been moving toward enhanced open banking Rest(ful) API-based connectivity, the process QuickBooks Online uses for transaction download. This provides a safer and more reliable way for banks to provide customer account information and the type and details of the banking data available, making the "connected services" more beneficial for the end user.
QuickBooks Desktop 2023 is implementing this improved banking connectivity using the same modernized platform as QuickBooks Online to help resolve security and connectivity concerns.
In addition, the improved banking connection adds intelligence and deep learning to banking data available to afford improved financial products and services for QuickBooks Desktop users now and in the future.
With Improved Banking Connectivity, online banking is enhanced in at least four ways:
- It will soon be possible to connect to many banks that previously did not offer direct connectivity, but only made bank downloads available.*
- Banking connections will be much more stable, have fewer interruptions and have less downtime. Bank connections also will be dramatically more secure.
- Automatic downloads of banking data on a user-determined frequency can be configured, and QuickBooks Desktop will fetch the bank (or credit card) information.
- Ultimately, intelligence built into the data streams of these new downloads will make automatic matching-styled reconciliation much easier for all banking and credit card transactions (just as is currently available with data from QuickBooks Payments).
Configuring Improved Banking Connectivity
Improved Banking Connectivity can be set up from Bank Feeds under the Banking menu. It also is accessible by selecting Bank Feeds from the shortcut sidebar on the Home Screen.
(1) From the Banking menu, select Bank Feeds
(2) Choose Set up Bank Feed for an Account from the Bank Feeds menu
(3) Find your Bank; enter your Bank’s name to search for your Bank
Source: Image captured from a Pre-release version of QuickBooks Desktop 2023.
(4) Select your bank name from the list of banks displayed in the drop down QuickBooks provides
(5) Connect/Authenticate with your Bank; enter your Bank credentials
Source: Image captured from a Pre-release version of QuickBooks Desktop 2023.
- QuickBooks will connect to your bank's server using the necessary mode of verification
- Your Bank will provide the necessary permissions to enable sharing your accounts' details with QuickBooks
(6) Link your bank account(s); match your Bank accounts to existing or new QuickBooks accounts
Source: Image captured from a Pre-release version of QuickBooks Desktop 2023.
(7) When you have matched all of your Bank accounts to QuickBooks, choose Connect
- QuickBooks will automatically Download download all bank transactions in the connected account(s)
Source: Image captured from a Pre-release version of QuickBooks Desktop 2023.
(8) Review your transactions
- This QuickBooks Help Document provides additional guidance on downloading bank feed transactions in QuickBooks Desktop
- This official QuickBooks Help Document provides additional guidance on adding and matching bank feed transactions in QuickBooks Desktop
Banking Connectivity Availability
While a limited number of banking institutions currently are enrolled in this new methodology, many more are on the way. This is the future of online banking and the habits of old “this is the way we have always done it." Banks are changing to meet the increasing demand for more and improved access by their customers using third-party solutions, not simply the bank’s website.
Intuit has indicated that more than 24,000 banks (and other financial institutions) ultimately will be available using the improved Banking Connectivity*.
Feature Availability
This new banking connectivity feature is available to all 2023 Desktop Plus (Pro & Premier), Enterprise (v23) version, and Accountant users within the United States as of the initial 2023 product (R1) release.
To learn more about this QuickBooks 2023 Desktop feature:
Please attend our September QB Talks webinar, scheduled for 2 p.m. (EST), Sept. 21, 2022. Here, Laura Madeira will bring you "A First Look at QuickBooks Desktop 2023." Laura develops this year's QuickBooks Desktop training content and exam materials for Intuit, so nobody is more knowledgeable about the new features. You can REGISTER HERE for the webinar.
Footnotes
*- Customers using QuickBooks Desktop Online Banking services (including the banking connectivity feature) may download data from participating banks. Online services vary by participating financial institutions and may be subject to other approvals, terms, conditions, and fees not associated with your QuickBooks Desktop subscription.
Disclosures
Materials within this feature, including graphic illustrations, were developed from various pre-release versions of QuickBooks Desktop 2023. Therefore, the final product version you may acquire may appear, act, or be functionally different from that illustrated or described herein.
Portions of this feature have been adapted from Intuit QuickBooks Desktop 2023-related content. All such source materials were adapted by Insightful Accountant solely for educational purposes.
As used herein, QuickBooks, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, QuickBooks Desktop (and other Intuit QuickBooks products) refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc.; a NASDAQ publicly traded "INTU" corporation, headquartered in Mountain View, California (USA).
Any or all other trade names used herein, including any other vendor (app/software) products discussed within this article, may be registered, trademarked, or otherwise held by their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged. They have been referenced for informational and educational purposes only.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. None of the vendors within this article have paid Insightful Accountant or the Author any form of remuneration to be included within this feature. This article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
The publication of this article does not represent any form of endorsement by either the Author or Insightful Accountant.
Note: Both Registered Trademark ® and Copyright © symbols have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they might otherwise appear or be repeated. Every attempt is made to credit such trademarked products or copyrighted materials within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.
Like what you're reading?
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and we'll deliver content like this directly to your inbox.