Quickbooks iif file import error – Solved – in this post we provide you the solutions how to fix iif files.

Quickbooks iif file import error – Solved

We recently changed banks.  Our .iif file downloads worked fine from the old bank but we have been having problems with the downloads from the new bank.  I have spent quite a bit of time trying to identify the problem and think that I may have a clue at this point.

Our .iif file has three heading lines:

!TRNS  TRNSID  TRNSTYPE  DATE  ACCNT  NAME  AMOUNT  MEMO  DOCNUM  CLASS
!SPL  SPLID  TRNSTYPE  DATE  ACCNT  NAME  AMOUNT  MEMO  DOCNUM CLASS
!ENDTRNS

When downloading the .iif file we get messages like
    Error on Line 6: Can’t record invalid transaction      and
   Error on Line 73: You can’t change the type of a name or add duplicate name.

At the end of the upload, we end up with ‘two’ new bank accounts:

    Unknown
    9_____835-Demand Deposit

The two bank accounts show the same totals but one is a negative number and the other a positive.

Based on my own review, it seems that there are two problems:

1. Two bank accounts are being generated instead of one.
2. In the .iif file it looks like any transaction that has an TRNSTYPE of “PAYMENT” results in an error (Can’t record invalid transaction)

(I think that I can address the ‘You can’t change the type of a name or add duplicate name’ error message).

We first encountered this problem with a company file that he was working with so decided to try it with a QuickBooks sample company account and ran into the same problem…so I don’t think that it’s a problem with the software (QB Premier Ed. 2016).

• importing iif files into quickbooks 2019
• import iif file into quickbooks desktop
• quickbooks we weren’t able to import right now
• ; [error] it’s a list or transaction that is not supported by the iif import process.
• unable to import iif files into quickbooks
• iif file not importing
• quickbooks 2019 errors
• quickbooks 2019 iif import error

These are some of the new restrictions & bugs, most of which are avoided when using the recommended method above.

1. When importing time records, QuickBooks may error and indicate that the related employee address is invalid – even though you are not importing changes to the employee.
2. Import will fail if class field values on time records are not dates – but the class list is not a list of dates.
3. The Send Later (email later) status for sales forms is ignored.
4. QuickBooks will not import reverse/credit lines on transactions. For example, you can’t import a return line item on an invoice, a line that reduces the invoice total. – this may be fixed.
5. It will not import 0.00 amount invoices (and perhaps other sales) even if the details of the invoice are non-zero.
6. Document numbers are incorrectly limited to 12 characters though much larger values are actually allowed in QB.
7. Phone numbers on name records are incorrectly limited in length which will often cause the extension to be omitted – while much longer values are actually accepted in QB.
8. If you attempt to include a semi-colon (;) on a record in the IIF file, QB stops reading the line at the semi-colon.  If there are required fields after that, the import fails.  If optional fields, then they are not imported and you will lose data.
9. If you include any characters with a computer-ascii value a little larger than a tilda (~) QB now imports it as a “?” character – while all other QB versions work as expected.
   1. Characters include “€‚ƒ„…†‡ˆ‰Š‹ŒŽ‘’“”•–—˜™š›œžŸ ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ”
   2. Also higher-end characters beyond this range.
   3. QB does support these characters using the old IIF import and the regular user interface.
   4. This means no names with European/international characters will work.  For example,  René Cresté will import as “Ren? Crest?”.
10. The reconciled status is ignored during import. All transactions are imported as uncleared, which completely defeats the use of the field.
11. While the reconciled status is ignored, QB still checks the values and will block the entire import if there is a single reconciled status other than Y or N or empty. But both IIF and QB support a third status, “newly cleared”, the “*” you can see in the register, which is represented in IIF using a third character.
12. Import fails if you omit the customer on sales receipt transactions. But at the same time QB does not require a customer on sales receipt transactions. You can record them without a name, which is commonly done when importing daily sales transactions.
13. When importing employees with perfectly formatted addresses – they are trashed: the City, State, ZIP fields are duplicated and entered in the second street address field.
14. When importing a check with no check number (since it is not really a check, for example, but a debit charge or similar) QuickBooks assigns a check number anyway. – this may be fixed.
15. Budget records will not import – QuickBooks gives an error: “It’s a list or transaction that is not supported by the IIF import process.”  Which is of course wrong.
16. When importing Group items and their detail on sales transactions, QB ignores the contents of the IIF file and just applies the group as it exists on your items list. So if you have customized the contents of the group, changed the amounts or the items included, none of that will be imported.