How to Manually Add a Transaction in QuickBooks Online

Quick Answer: Select + Create (shown as + New in some accounts) and choose the form that fits the transaction: Expense for money already paid out, Check for a written check, Bank Deposit for money in, or Transfer for money moving between your own accounts. Fill in the account, date, payee, category and amount, then Save and close. For a quick entry you can also add a check, deposit or journal entry straight from the account's register.

Typing a transaction into QuickBooks Online is the right move for the odd item a bank feed missed, a cash purchase, or a check written today. The key is choosing the correct form, because the form decides which accounts move. An expense and a transfer can both take $500 out of checking, but only one of them should land on your profit and loss.

Which form should you use for each bank transaction?

Intuit draws the expense-versus-bill line clearly in its expenses article: enter an expense when you have already paid, and a bill if you plan to pay later.

How do you add an expense manually?

1. Select + Create, then Expense.
2. In Payee, choose the vendor (or add a new one).
3. In the payment account field, choose the bank or credit card account that paid.
4. Enter the payment date and, optionally, the payment method and a reference number.
5. Under Category details, choose the expense account and add a description.
6. Enter the amount and any tax.
7. If you will bill a customer for it, tick Billable and pick the customer.
8. Add a memo if useful, then select Save and close.

You can split one expense across several categories by adding lines under Category details, which is how you record a single store receipt that covered supplies and a meal.

How do you record a check?

According to Intuit's check instructions:

1. Select + Create, then Check.
2. Choose the payee and the bank account the money comes from.
3. Enter the payment date and the check number. If you are recording a check you already wrote by hand, clear Print later and type the actual number.
4. Fill in Category details for expenses, or Item details if you are paying for products or services on your list.
5. Add a memo, then select Save and close or Save and new.

Recording the check on the day you write it, rather than waiting for the bank feed, is what lets your reconciliation show it as outstanding at month end.

How do you add a deposit manually?

Money in has two cases.

Grouping payments you already recorded. When customers pay invoices, the payments usually sit in Undeposited Funds until you deposit them. Select + Create, then Bank Deposit, choose the bank account, tick the payments that went to the bank together, check that the total equals the deposit on your bank statement, and save. Intuit's deposit guide stresses that the QuickBooks deposit should be for exactly the amount the bank shows.

Money that has no earlier record. A tax refund, a loan advance, an owner contribution or interest goes in the Add funds to this deposit section of the same form: enter who it is from, the account it belongs to (income, a liability, equity) and the amount. The same section takes bank fees as negative lines, which is how you record a merchant deposit that arrived net of fees.

How do you record a transfer between accounts?

1. Select + Create, then Transfer.
2. In Transfer Funds From, choose the account the money left.
3. In Transfer Funds To, choose the account it went into.
4. Enter the Transfer Amount, the date and an optional memo.
5. Select Save and close, confirming the date if asked.

Intuit's transfer article recommends entering a transfer as one transaction that affects both accounts. Paying your business credit card from checking is a transfer too, from checking to the credit card account. Recording it as an expense would count every purchase twice.

Is there a faster way? Add it from the register

If you are already looking at an account, you can add a transaction without opening a separate form. Go to All apps > Accounting > Chart of accounts, find the account and select View register, then use the dropdown that offers Add journal entry, Add check or Add deposit, fill in the line and Save. Intuit's register article notes that not every account register allows direct entry, and that forms such as invoices or sales receipts give better reporting for sales.

Will a manual entry duplicate the bank feed?

Only if you add the downloaded copy instead of matching it. When the bank later sends the same transaction through the feed or a file upload, it appears in the review list. Because the transaction already exists in QuickBooks, the review list can offer it as a match. Choose the match, and the manual entry and the bank line become one. Choose Add, and you now have two.

Habits that keep this clean:

• Use the same payee name on manual entries that the bank uses, or at least one QuickBooks will recognize.
• Enter the real date, not the day you got round to typing it.
• Review the feed at least weekly so matches are obvious.

When is manual entry the right call, and when should you upload a file?

Manual entry makes sense for:

• cash and petty cash purchases that never touch a bank feed;
• checks on the day you write them;
• a few transactions a feed missed;
• owner contributions or loans that need a specific equity or liability account;
• corrections, such as splitting a payment between principal and interest.

It stops making sense once you are looking at dozens of lines. A month with 80 transactions missing from a feed, a year of history for a new client, or an account that has never been connected is a file-upload job: QuickBooks Online takes a CSV, QBO or OFX file through its upload screen, as described in the guide to importing bank transactions into QuickBooks Online. If the bank has only PDF statements for that period, a converter can produce the file. QuickBankConvert, for example, reads a statement PDF into CSV, or into a QBO file on its Plus plan and above, and the QuickBooks integration page shows how that file is used.

Once the transactions are in, by hand or by file, reconcile the account against the statement; reconciling in QuickBooks Online covers the steps.

Related guides

• Bulk upload from a CSV or QBO file
• The QuickBooks Online reconcile screen
• Categorizing what the feed brings in
• Statement files for QuickBooks