PNC Export Transactions: CSV, QBO and QuickBooks

Quick Answer: In PNC Online Banking, open the account's transaction activity and use the download or export option to save a spreadsheet file for Excel, a .QFX file for Quicken, or a .QBO file for QuickBooks. For QuickBooks on an ongoing basis, PNC recommends connecting through the "PNC Bank" Web Connect listing inside QuickBooks instead. Older activity is only in the statement PDFs.

PNC gives you two ways to get transactions out: a manual export you start from online banking, and a connection that QuickBooks or Quicken uses to pull activity automatically. The export suits a one-off spreadsheet or a short QuickBooks catch-up. The connection suits ongoing books. Neither reaches back as far as PNC's statement archive, which matters if you are rebuilding a prior year.

What export formats does PNC offer?

PNC's own pages list these options:

On the credit card management page, PNC says you may export account activity into Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Money or Microsoft Excel. Its Quicken and QuickBooks page adds that customers can manually export transactions as .QFX for Quicken or .QBO for QuickBooks.

How do you export PNC transactions?

PNC does not publish a click-by-click guide for the export screen on its public site, so the steps below are the general sequence; labels can vary between checking, savings and card accounts, and between personal and business online banking.

1. Sign in to PNC Online Banking on a computer rather than the mobile app.
2. Select the account you want to export.
3. Open its transaction activity and look for the download or export control near the list of transactions.
4. Choose the format: the spreadsheet option for Excel, .QBO for QuickBooks, or .QFX for Quicken.
5. Set the date range. The screen will only accept dates inside the window PNC keeps online.
6. Download the file and rename it with the account and period so you can tell files apart later.

Repeat per account. A checking account and a PNC credit card produce two separate files, and QuickBooks needs them in two separate accounts anyway.

How far back does PNC history go?

PNC publishes different windows for viewing activity and for statements:

• Credit card activity: up to 13 months of posted transactions in Online Banking, per the credit card page.
• Credit card statements: up to 48 months online, or four years.
• Checking and savings statements: up to 7 years, per PNC's online statements page, which also lists 5 years for mortgage and home equity loans and 10 years for investment accounts.

So for a card, an export can reach about a year, while statements go back four. For checking, the export window is shorter than the seven-year statement archive. When the date picker stops, the remaining months have to come from statements.

Opening a PNC spreadsheet export in Excel

A spreadsheet export is the right file when you want to read, filter or total your PNC activity rather than book it. A few habits make it behave:

• Import instead of double-clicking. In Excel, use Data > From Text/CSV and preview the columns. That lets you set the delimiter and keep the date column as a date.
• Make one signed amount column. If withdrawals and deposits arrive in separate columns, add a column that subtracts one from the other so a single SUM gives the net change for the period.
• Keep reference numbers as text. Long check or reference numbers can turn into scientific notation; set that column to Text in the import preview.
• Turn the range into a table with Ctrl+T, then filter by description to find a merchant or sum a category.

How do you download transactions from PNC to QuickBooks?

There are two paths, and PNC recommends the first.

Option 1: the PNC Web Connect connection (recommended by PNC)

PNC's Quicken and QuickBooks page says to use the default Web Connect option and names the listing to pick in each product:

• QuickBooks Online: search for PNC Bank.
• QuickBooks Desktop: choose PNC Bank QBDT EWC.
• Quicken: choose PNC Bank – Web Connect.

PNC describes this connection as pulling account transactions and balances into QuickBooks automatically as they post in online banking, with no service charge and using your existing PNC Online Banking sign-in. You set it up from inside QuickBooks, not from PNC's site. The connection screens on the QuickBooks side are the same for any bank; our Chase to QuickBooks guide shows them step by step, and downloading bank transactions into QuickBooks Online covers what to do once transactions start arriving.

Option 2: export a .QBO file and upload it

Use this when the connection is not set up, or for a period it did not cover.

1. Export a .QBO file from PNC for the dates you need.
2. In QuickBooks Online, go to All apps > Accounting > Bank transactions, open Link account, and choose Upload from file.
3. Select the file, choose the QuickBooks account it belongs to, and review the transactions before accepting.

Intuit's manual upload article limits a file to 350 KB and 1,000 transactions, and it advises starting the date range the day after your last recorded transaction to avoid duplicates. QuickBooks Desktop users import the same file through Banking > Bank Feeds > Import Web Connect Files; the Bank of America QBO article explains that screen and its error messages.

A CSV export also works in QuickBooks Online if you map the columns during upload. QBO is less work because the file already says which field is which.

What do you do with PNC transactions older than the export window?

Say you need all of last year's card activity in QuickBooks and the export only gives you the past 13 months. Or a new client hands you a checking account that has never been in QuickBooks. The data is in PNC's statements; the work is getting it out of PDF form.

1. In Online Banking or the PNC mobile app, go to Statements and Documents and save each statement PDF you need.
2. Convert the PDFs into transactions. Our PNC statement converter page covers how PNC's statement layouts convert, and the PNC statement to Excel walkthrough goes deeper on the spreadsheet side.
3. For QuickBooks, download a QBO file rather than a spreadsheet. On QuickBankConvert that format is part of the Plus plan and above; the file is built from the PDF you upload, and you never enter your PNC credentials.
4. Before importing, compare each month's total against the statement's opening and closing balances, and check the file with the QBO file checker.
5. Stop the converted range at the day before your first exported or connected transaction, so the two sources do not overlap.

Tips for clean PNC imports

• Pick one route per period. Exports and the live connection can both deliver the same dates. Decide a cut-over date and stick to it.
• Watch for pending items. Transactions still pending in online banking can appear in a spreadsheet export and then post with a different date or amount. Export settled periods where you can.
• Card payments are transfers. A payment from PNC checking to a PNC card appears in both accounts. Match the two sides as a transfer in QuickBooks.
• Bank changes break connections. PNC's Quicken and QuickBooks page currently lists reconnection deadlines for former FirstBank customers moving to PNC accounts. If your connection stops after a bank change, reconnect using the listing names above.

Related guides

• PNC statement converter
• Convert a PNC bank statement to Excel
• Download bank transactions into QuickBooks Online
• QuickBooks integration