What is an OFX file, and how is it different from QFX, QBO and QIF?

What is OFX in banking?

OFX is an open standard for exchanging financial data between banks and software, created in 1997 by Intuit, Microsoft and CheckFree. Since 2019 it has been maintained by the Financial Data Exchange (FDX). Banks use it in two ways: software can connect to the bank's OFX server and download transactions directly, or you download an .ofx file from online banking and import it yourself.

Versions 1.x are SGML — tags without closing tags — and version 1.6 was the last of them. Versions 2.x are XML; the current banking version is 2.3. Both carry the same information, and most bank downloads you'll meet are still version 1.

What's inside an OFX file

Open an .ofx file in a text editor and you'll see a short header followed by tagged blocks. The important ones:

Dates are written as YYYYMMDD (often with a time), amounts with a dot as decimal separator, and money out is negative. The FITID lets software skip transactions it has already imported.

OFX vs QFX vs QBO vs QIF

All four formats carry the same basic information — dates, amounts, payees — but they're made for different software:

What is a QFX file, and what is a QBO file?

QFX (Quicken Financial Exchange) and QBO files are OFX inside, with Intuit-specific fields added — including the identifier of a bank that has a Web Connect agreement with Intuit. The difference isn't the data but who the file is for: Quicken imports QFX, and QuickBooks Desktop imports QBO through Banking → Bank Feeds → Import Web Connect Files. Quicken's own help says it can't import plain OFX files, and QuickBooks Desktop's Web Connect reads only .qbo files — which is why renaming an extension usually isn't enough.

QIF is older and simpler. It has no account numbers or unique transaction IDs, so re-importing an overlapping period can create duplicates, and dates such as 03/04/26 are ambiguous between US and European order. Quicken for Windows no longer imports QIF into checking, savings or credit card accounts, according to Quicken's import help. Use OFX, QFX or QBO wherever the target app supports them.

How to open an OFX file

It depends on what you want to do with it:

• To read it: open it in any text editor (Notepad, TextEdit). Every transaction is readable, just not as a table.
• To import it: use the import function of your finance or accounting software — that's what the file is made for.
• To get it into Excel: Excel has no OFX import. Version 2 files are XML and Excel's Get Data → From XML can sometimes read them, but most bank downloads are version 1 and won't open cleanly. The reliable route is to convert the OFX file to Excel or CSV.

Bank Statement Categorizer reads OFX, QFX and QBO files as well as PDFs. Upload one and export an Excel file with a date, payee, category and amount per row; structured files like these use no pages, though you need a plan or page pack. See bank statement to Excel.

How to create an OFX file from a PDF bank statement

You need this when the bank doesn't offer OFX for the period you need, when statements are older than the download window, or when the bank has stopped offering the format — CommBank, for example, no longer offers OFX or QIF exports (see the CommBank page).

1. Upload the PDF statements — digital, scanned or a phone photo.
2. Check the result: each statement is balance-checked (opening balance + money in − money out = closing balance), and rows that don't add up are flagged with their page number.
3. Choose Export → OFX for apps that import OFX, .qbo for QuickBooks Desktop, or QIF for apps that still read it.
4. Import the file in your software and confirm the closing balance matches the statement.

Common OFX import problems

• Duplicates: importing two files with overlapping dates. Software that uses the FITID skips repeats; otherwise, import non-overlapping periods.
• Wrong account type: a credit card file imported into a bank account (or the other way round) can flip the meaning of signs. Pick the matching account in the import dialog.
• Rejected by Quicken or QuickBooks Desktop: Quicken expects QFX and QuickBooks Desktop expects QBO, each with a recognized bank identifier. Use a .qbo export for QuickBooks Desktop; for QuickBooks Online a CSV is often simpler — see how to import bank statements into QuickBooks Online.
• Garbled characters in payee names: the file's character set doesn't match the content. Re-export from the source rather than editing the file by hand.

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