FAQ

OFX stands for Open Financial Exchange. It is an XML format used to import financial transactions into QuickBooks, Quicken, and other applications for reconciliation purposes.

Our QIF to OFX Converter can help you create OFX, QBO, and QFX files. It creates these files locally on your machine and then they can be imported by these applications.

We no longer offer any apps for the Mac due to slow sales in turn a result of Microsoft’s crippling new versions of Excel which can no longer properly support add-ins.

For tools that are Excel addins, MS Excel is required.

MS Works is not Excel and does not support add-ins.

Many of our apps are Excel Add-ins that require Excel.

The apps are supported under various versions of Excel, from Excel 2000 – 2019 for Windows.

Each of the apps’ home pages indicates the supported versions of Excel in the Compatibility box.

Some relatively unusual settings can impact loading add-ins, as they disable the ability to run them.  To check these settings, follow these steps:

Excel 2003: Choose Tools | Macro | Security | Trusted Publishers and then make sure the two available check-boxes are checked.

Excel 2007: To see this setting, go to Excel Options from the Office button in the upper-left corner of Excel, then Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, Add-ins, then make sure all three of the options there are unchecked.   Pick both Com addins and Excel addins from the pick list at the bottom of the windows, and then make sure none are loaded Except BRC Addins.  Then restart Excel.

Excel 2010 – 2016:  Use steps similar to Excel 2007  to find the Trust Center Settings.

The message reads, “This workbook has lost its VBA project, ActiveX controls and any other programmability-related features.“

This happens when VBA for applications is not installed with Office. It is installed by default in most cases.  To resolve the situation, reinstall Office or Excel and install the Visual Basic for Application components.

This is an Excel bug that happens to some Excel uses at different points.  It is no longer very common and is generally caused by virus checker’s that try to decompile the addin.  This triggers Excel to put up a password prompt.  The fix is to teach your virus checker to stop checking Excel addins for viruses in this way or to get a different virus checker that behaves properly as it interacts with Excel.

No, we don’t use customer information for any purpose except to process your order & to send you information (such as update notices) about the tool or tools you purchased.

Yes. New releases of our products are currently offered free of charge.

To update your product, download the latest release and install it on top of the older release.

Your product preferences are retained when you install a new release.

You may send a copy of the tool to anyone for trial use. Or, send a link to our site so they can download the free trial.

However, please do not share your product key. A product key is issued for each product purchased and is intended for one user. If you have multiple users who have access to the tools purchased, please purchase multiple copies. See the End User License Agreements (EULA) within each tool.

You may request a replacement key and we will automatically send you an email with your purchase history with the products you’ve purchased and the key for each product.  To use this service you must have access to the original email used to make your purchases.

This is caused by entering the key into the wrong addin or mistyping the key.

The key is alpha-numeric & will contain both your name and a number, surrounded with Quotes, like “John Doe-1234567890”. 

Tips:

–  Enter or paste everything between the quotes.

– Don’t includes spaces around the “-” character.  “Tim – 1234567890” and “Tim-1234567890” are not the same thing.

– When using Windows, you can use Ctrl-C to copy the key from your email notification and Ctrl-V to paste it into the About dialog.

Spam blockers are the most common reason key codes aren’t received via email.  If you have a junk email folder, check that for the confirmation email.

Also, to make sure you can receive email from customersupport@bigredconsulting.com, add the email to your spam-blocker’s white list or to your address book.

If you need a replacement key, start here.

When you complete your purchase, you’ll immediately be sent a purchase confirmation receipt and & your new product key(s).  These are sent via email to the email address you use when you place your order.  You should receive the email within a few minutes, usually faster.  If you do not see it in your inbox, check your spam folder.

Each is limited in some way. For example the IIF Transaction creator will create up to 100 transactions during its trial.

We accept major credit cards including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, Discover, Diner’s Card.

Both credit cards and debit cards bearing a Visa or MasterCard logo are accepted.

Yes.  Use our QIF to OFX Converter to create QFX files, a type of OFX file that Quicken will import.

No. The OFX file format doesn’t contain any fields for a category or for split detail information. However, you can use the QIF file format to include this information.

Yes. Our Excel to QIF Converter now supports import of security price history details as well as security account transactions.

Yes, we’ve tested them with Quicken through the most recent versions. Tools that create QFX files, such as our QIF to OFX Converter work with supported versions of Quicken, which are typically the last three version years of Quicken.

IIF stands for Intuit Interchange Format, a file format for importing data into financial software. QuickBooks will export IIF files that contain lists & will import IIF files that contain both lists & transactions. The format is daunting for many non-programmer types. Several of our tools make it easier, including the IIF Transaction Creator, the List Importer, and the Transaction Copier.

The IIF Transaction Creator can use CSV and other text files opened in Excel.  It will help you convert these files to IIF files for import into QuickBooks.  This is a good way to imported banking or credit card transactions where you don’t enter them as you go.  They’re imported directly into your register.

The QIF to OFX Converter will import QIF files or use worksheet data downloaded from your bank. It will create OFX, QFX, and QBO files you can import into the online banking center in QuickBooks  or Quicken.  This is useful is you enter most transactions as you go, and want to reconcile them against the bank’s data.

Yes. Opening balances for lists are created by importing transactions in combination with lists. For import, this means both a new list item & an accompanying transaction must be imported.

Setting this up manually is rather cumbersome, though it’s easy when using our List Importer where all you have to do is specify the opening balance amount for each account or name and the rest is taken care of.

No, it does not include built- in export for transactions.  However, QuickBooks does expose its data to 3^rd party tools and that can be used to create IIF files with transactions.   Then those files can be imported into another QuickBooks file.  Our Transaction Copier takes advantage of this capability and allows you to copy transactions from one QuickBooks file to another.

Yes! QuickBooks can import transactions using the IIF file standard. Generally, this can be quite complicated to setup and is considered ‘programming’ by Intuit, and they don’t support questions about IIF. Several of our addins can help with this task, allowing you to convert simple spreadsheets into IIF files.

QuickBooks does have some limits in the import area.  This is a partial list of limitations:

– QuickBooks will import most transaction types, but not all.  Paychecks & Sales Orders are two transaction types that can’t be imported.

– For those using Advanced Inventory, QuickBooks does not support Advanced Inventory fields for import, but also requires them to be filled out on transactions.  To import you need to first turn off Advanced Inventory, then import, then turn it back on.

– QuickBooks won’t import custom fields on transactions.

– QuickBooks will import transactions using only your home currency.

– Links between transactions, such as invoices and payments, are not imported.

– For Employee records, only basic information such as Name and Address and a few other fields common to other types of names can be imported.

– For Lists, such as Items, Customer,  & Vendors, some lesser used and newer fields are not supported.  These fields include credit card fields for names and units of measure, the MPN, and location information for items.

QuickBooks can import most data using IIF files.  Different types of IIF files can be created using our tools.

QuickBooks will import most types of financial transactions, time records, most types of list records, and budgets using IIF files.

We offer tools that can help you import import transactions (e.g. the IIF Transaction Creator, Transaction Copier, and QIF to IIF Converter), time records (using the Excel Timesheet Link), and may types of lists (using the QB List Importer.)  We don’t offer any tools that work with budgets.

QuickBooks will also import *.QBO files (a type of *.OFX file) for use in the bank feeds feature.  Use our QIF to OFX Converter, OFX Cleaner, or the Excel to OFX Converter to create QBO files.

Use the support request form on the Support menu to send a suggestion.

This happens from time to time. To date, we’ve fixed nearly everything ever reported. We will work with you to resolve product errors.

Please send a support request using the Support menu that describes what is happening.

Be sure you’ve reviewed the in-product documentation and available examples. Together, these resources create a picture of what the tool does, what it expects, & what to do in some specific cases.

If none of this helps,  please send a support request from the Support menu.  We usually respond to support requests on the same business day, and sometimes on weekends.