File formats: The five files finance software argues about.
QIF, QFX, OFX, QBO, and IIF turn up when a bank or an accounting program hands you something your computer will not open. Three of them are closely related and one is nothing like the others, which explains most of the confusion between them.
Export transactions
Choose the scope, format, fields, and column order.
Scope
Selected transactions (40)Exports only the currently selected rows.
Format
OFXA standard bank-data file.
Fixed field set
OFX/QuickBooks files always carry date, description, and signed amount.
Row order
Match current viewFields
Fixed by the OFX/QuickBooks format
Preview
1,284 matching transactions
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-24 | STRIPE PAYOUT 4af2c9 | 4820.00 |
| 2025-10-23 | AWS EMEA SARL us-east-1 | -1204.00 |
| 2025-10-22 | WHOLE FOODS MKT #214 | -112.88 |
1,284 rows · 3 columns
Export OFX- 1987QIF first shipped
- 1997OFX published
- 5Formats explained
- 22Free tools
Four cousins and an outsider.
OFX is the format banks and accounting tools settled on, and QFX and QBO are that same document with identifiers added for Quicken and QuickBooks respectively. That is why a QBO import fails on its header far more often than on its transactions. That family shares a structure, which is why moving between them is a matter of the header rather than of re-reading any transactions. QIF is the generation before it: plain text, no account, no unique ids, ambiguous dates. IIF belongs to none of them. It is QuickBooks Desktop's own tab-delimited import, it writes double-entry rows straight into a company file, and it is the only one on this page that can leave a mess behind rather than simply refusing to load.
By format
What the file you have actually is
Each page covers what is inside the format, what still opens one, the errors it produces, and what to convert it to.
QIF Files
QIFQuicken's oldest text format: what is inside one, and what still reads it.
OpenQFX Files
QFXQuicken's Web Connect file, and why a plain OFX will not do instead.
OpenOFX Files
OFXThe banks' interchange format, its two incompatible versions, and what imports it.
OpenQBO Files
QBOQuickBooks' Web Connect file, and the header that decides whether it imports.
OpenIIF Files
IIFQuickBooks Desktop's tab-delimited import, and the accounts it creates by accident.
Open
Free tools
Look inside the file first
These run in the browser, with nothing to install and no account needed, which is usually faster than installing the program that wrote the file.
Starting from a PDF rather than a file you cannot open?
If what you have is a statement from the bank and you need one of these formats out of it, the convert pages walk that in the other direction: PDF in, the format your tool accepts out.
The five side by side
The short version, if you only need to know which one you are holding.
| Format | Reads it | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| QIF | Quicken (limited), MYOB, GnuCash, Moneydance | Plain text from the late 1980s. No account, no transaction ids, and dates with no stated day-month order. |
| QFX | Quicken | OFX plus Intuit's institution id. A plain OFX renamed to .qfx is rejected, because Quicken checks inside the file. |
| OFX | Xero, Sage, Wave, GnuCash, Moneydance | The open format the others are built on. Versions 1.x and 2.x are SGML and XML, and readers for one fail on the other. |
| QBO | QuickBooks Online and Desktop | OFX plus Intuit's Web Connect header. Refused when the institution id is one QuickBooks does not know, whatever the transactions say. |
| IIF | QuickBooks Desktop only | Tab-delimited double-entry rows. Creates any account it names, has no duplicate detection, and cannot be undone. |
Each row links to the page behind it. Making one of these from a statement PDF is the convert cluster's job; these pages are for the file you already have.
FAQ
Common questions
Which format does my accounting software want?
QuickBooks Online takes QBO or a mapped CSV. QuickBooks Desktop takes QBO or IIF. Quicken takes QFX, and QIF only in some account types. Xero, Sage, Wave, GnuCash, and Moneydance take OFX. A spreadsheet takes CSV or Excel.
Can I convert between these formats?
Between OFX, QFX, and QBO, yes, and it is a small change, since the transaction body is identical and only the header differs. QIF into any of them is a genuine conversion, because the missing account details and transaction ids have to come from somewhere. IIF is a different model entirely and is best produced from source data rather than translated.
Why will my program not open the file?
The three most common reasons are the wrong format for the destination, an OFX version mismatch between the SGML and XML generations, and an institution id the program does not recognise. All three are visible in the first few lines of the file, which is why reading it before retrying saves time.
Can Excel open any of these?
IIF, yes, since it is tab-delimited text, and a spreadsheet is the sensible way to inspect one. QIF, QFX, and OFX do not open as tables in Excel and have to be converted to CSV or XLSX first.
The rest of the site
Convert
Every format a statement can become, and the bank pages behind each one.
Integrations
Which accounting tools need a converted file, and which format each one takes.
Solutions
The same statements, read for the role you actually have.
Use cases
The jobs statements get read for, from reconciliation to a forecast.
Features
The product in full, and a page for each part worth its own.
Free tools
Bookkeeping and statement tools that run in your browser: month-end, PDFs, import files, and the numbers.
Comparisons
Five head-to-heads, each checked against the other product's own pages.
Or skip the file and start from the statement.
Fifty free page credits, no card. Upload a PDF statement and export it as whichever of these your next tool accepts.