Why is my accounting software's bank feed not connecting, downloading, updating, or showing my bank transactions (or missing some of them), and how do I fix it?

Which of the four symptoms do you have?

Each symptom points at a different family of causes, and the fix for one can do damage in another.

Before going further, write down two dates for every account under the affected bank login: the newest item that did arrive, and the earliest item you expected but cannot find. Those dates bound everything that follows.

Why should you diagnose before repairing anything?

The step most people reach for first, disconnecting the account and connecting it again, has the worst side effects. Intuit's help for QuickBooks Online says that when you disconnect, QuickBooks removes any transactions still in the Pending (For review) tab, and that an account disconnected while it has an error might download duplicate transactions when you reconnect it. Intuit also says transactions older than 90 days can't be downloaded from the bank when you reconnect. Intuit's instruction is to fix a bank connection error before you disconnect, unless the error message itself tells you to disconnect and reconnect.

What is the diagnostic checklist, in order?

Work the steps in order and stop at the first one that explains your symptom. Steps 1 to 6 change nothing in your books:

1. Record the symptom. Note any error code with its exact wording.
2. List what changed recently. A new password or security setting, a new card or account number, a bank conversion, or a colleague reconnecting is the usual trigger, and its date usually marks where a gap begins.

3. Sign in at the bank directly. Intuit's help for error 103 has you open a new browser window and go directly to your bank's website. If you cannot sign in, or the bank wants a code or fresh consent, the cause is at the bank; if you can, note whether each missing item is pending or posted.

   While signed in, look for a posted outage or maintenance notice and review your account for messages, notifications or alerts, as Intuit's help for updating bank feeds advises.

4. Read the connection's status. Match any error code in the table under "What causes it at the bank?". Intuit's help says QuickBooks notifies you on the banking screen of a known banking issue with a connected account, so check there too.
5. Rule out timing. With no error showing, run a manual update and allow for the delivery window before calling the feed broken. If Update pulls nothing, sign in to QuickBooks in a private or incognito window and update again, which Intuit's help says helps rule out browser extensions and cached sign-ins.
6. Search your own books. Check the places under "Are the missing items really missing?" across every account the same login reaches. Whichever step you started at, do steps 3 and 5 for the missing items before going to step 7.
7. Only now, repair. Choose the least consequential repair that fits the cause you found.
8. Close the seam. Find the exact gap, fill it with a bounded range and check the period against the statement.

Is the feed broken, or just running behind?

Intuit's help says most banks update transactions with QuickBooks every 24 hours, but times can vary, and that it may take up to 48 hours for transactions to come over. To pull what is ready now, go to All apps, then Accounting, then Bank transactions, and select Update, which Intuit's help offers for syncing any missing transaction. If the bank itself is down, Intuit's help says bank outages usually resolve within 24–48 hours and that transactions then resume downloading normally.

Wells Fargo, for example, defines pending transactions as those known to the bank but not yet fully processed (posted), and notes that a pending debit card amount may not be the final amount deducted. Intuit's help says QuickBooks doesn't download pending transactions. An item shown as pending in the bank's app is therefore not late in the feed: it cannot arrive until it posts. Check its status at the bank rather than assuming how long posting takes.

Are the missing items really missing?

Items leave the review list once they are dealt with, so a "missing" item is often already in the books. In QuickBooks Online, check each of these places before treating anything as undelivered:

• The Posted (Categorized) tab. Intuit's help describes it as holding already categorized transactions, so an item you categorized earlier sits there rather than in Pending. Pending and Posted here are QuickBooks review tabs, not the bank's pending and posted status.
• The Excluded tab. Intuit's help says it holds transactions you excluded or marked as personal or duplicate.
• Your bank rules. Intuit's help says rules set to auto-add move transactions directly into your books, so those items never wait for review.
• Uncategorized Income and Uncategorized Expense. Intuit's help says QuickBooks puts transactions you don't categorize into these accounts.
• The account register. Intuit's help says a register lists all past and current transactions associated with its account, so search it for the date and amount.

Clear any date range, search or filter on the list you are reading, too. An item you find already entered by hand needs pairing with its arriving copy, not re-entry; pairing, excluding and restoring are separate topics.

What if one bank login covers several accounts or cards?

Check every account and card the same sign-in reaches before calling anything undelivered, because an item reported as missing may be sitting against a sibling account. The login also matters when you renew. Intuit's help for error 350 says to always select All Accounts when your bank asks which accounts to share, and its help for error 324 warns that selecting different accounts from your original choice removes authorization for the previously selected accounts. (Intuit gives this for a single company; where several companies share one bank sign-in, have one person handle all reconnections, as described below.)

What causes it at the bank?

A change you made at the bank for good reasons can silence the feed without any fault in the accounting software: a new password or security setting leaves the connection holding details that no longer work. Intuit's help says that if you've updated your bank account number, username, or password on your bank's website, you should make sure QuickBooks has the same info.

Access can also be withdrawn at the bank. Bank of America, for example, says customers give a third party consent by logging in directly to Bank of America and can revoke that permission at any time. Intuit's help for error 103 says to check on your bank's website whether it requires third-party access and, if so, follow the bank's instructions to turn it on.

What causes it inside the connection or the software?

Some faults sit between the bank and your books:

• Another company took the connection over. Intuit's help for error 350 says the most recently reconnected company takes over and all other companies lose access to the connected bank; it recommends one person handle all bank connection setups and maintenance.
• Someone reconnected with different credentials. Intuit's help for error 324 says that after a reconnection with different bank credentials from the original, such as a spouse's login or a secondary account, QuickBooks can't match the original accounts.
• The account is mapped to the wrong ledger account. When the feed is healthy but its items land in a ledger account you did not expect, they were delivered, not lost, so don't re-enter them or disconnect to change the mapping. Intuit's help for error 324 covers choosing the ledger account only while fixing or reconnecting, so take a wrong mapping on a live connection to QuickBooks support, naming the bank account and the ledger account.
• The account was disconnected. Nothing arrives until it is connected again, and Intuit's help says disconnecting removed whatever was still in the Pending tab, so start the gap check from the last item recorded in that account's register, not the disconnect date, because the removed items can be older.

Which repair should you choose, and what does each do?

Repair in this order:

1. Run Update. It is the cheapest step.
2. Correct the sign-in or answer the bank's challenge. This is the repair for errors 103 and 185 in the table above. Intuit's help for updating bank info has you update the details QuickBooks holds under Bank transactions: select the account card, Edit, then Edit sign in info, enter the new details and select Save and connect.

3. Renew the existing connection. Intuit's help for error 350 has you confirm the user ID and password you use to sign in to your bank's website, re-enter your bank info if needed and select Save and connect, and its help for error 324 has you map the updated account to your existing QuickBooks account. The feed keeps posting to the same ledger account, so your records stay in one place.

   Intuit's help for errors 103 and 350 says to have the original user who set up the connection re-establish it: select Send a request in the error message, which emails that user a sign-in link. Use the same bank login the connection was set up with; Intuit's help for error 324 says reconnecting with different bank credentials causes error 324.

4. Disconnect and reconnect, only as a last resort. First add or match every transaction in the Pending tab, which Intuit's help says keeps a complete record up to the disconnect date and makes duplicates easier to spot when transactions download again. Then expect the three effects described under "Why should you diagnose before repairing anything?".

   Intuit's help for error 324 also makes a disconnect the fix in two cases. After someone reconnected with different credentials, go to Manage Connections, disconnect the mismatched or duplicate connections and reconnect with the original login. A closed or suspended account can't be reconnected: make sure all its pending transactions have been reviewed and posted in QuickBooks, disconnect it, then link the replacement account.

Intuit's disconnect help also warns that on reconnection QuickBooks may treat it as a brand-new connection, create a new account in your chart of accounts and add an automatic opening balance transaction, and that if the account still has a balance, QuickBooks posts an adjusting entry and moves the balance to other accounts. So first write down the account's opening balance from the reconciliation screen and check with your accountant; when reconnecting, map the account to your existing QuickBooks account rather than create a new one, as Intuit's help for error 324 advises.

Before repair 4, write down what it will do in your case: which items will leave Pending, how far back the reconnection can reach, which dates you must screen for duplicates, and whether a new account or opening balance entry may appear. Clearing duplicates already recorded is a separate job.

What if the account was just reconnected, migrated or renumbered?

A symptom that appears right after a reconnection, a bank conversion or a new account number usually starts at that seam, and gaps and duplicates both form there. First add or match every item still in the account's Pending tab, as Intuit advises before a disconnect, so the register holds everything that arrived. Then establish the boundary on each side before filling anything:

• The old side. This is the date of the last item recorded under the old connection or account number, read from the register.
• The new side. This is the date of the earliest item the new connection delivered.
• The bank's record. This is the statement covering both dates, or both statements if the bank issued one for the old number and one for the new.

Items dated between the two boundaries are the gap. Check the boundary days themselves line by line, because one day's items can be split across the seam. If the new connection reached back before the old boundary, the overlap is a duplicate population, not a gap.

How do you fill a confirmed gap without creating duplicates?

Repairing the connection does not repair the books. Choose a route by the size and age of the gap.

Intuit's help for missing transactions says to use file import instead of entering transactions manually when QuickBooks can't download them, and its manual-upload help says QuickBooks accepts an account statement (PDF or image) or a list of transactions. Intuit's help says QuickBooks doesn't download transactions older than 90 days, so an older gap will not fill itself. Intuit's help for errors 350 and 324 does not say whether a renewed connection re-delivers a recent gap, so if the first update after the repair brings nothing dated inside the gap, import.

Intuit's help for manual uploads covers adding transactions when you can't connect to your bank or want ones from before you connected, and says to check your chart of accounts before uploading to avoid creating duplicate transactions. Bank exports vary: Wells Fargo, for example, says its download captures the last 90 days by default, with up to 18 months available for certain account types by choosing the time frame.

To import a bounded range, follow these steps:

1. Take the two boundary dates and include the boundary days themselves.
2. Download only that range from the bank. Intuit's upload help asks that the file start at least one day before your oldest QuickBooks transaction in that account and does not say how a gap-only file is handled, so confirm with QuickBooks support before uploading one.
3. Delete from the file every line already in QuickBooks for that account, whether in the register or still in the Pending or Excluded tab: those on the boundary days and any you entered by hand inside the gap.
4. Upload the trimmed file, keeping it within Intuit's upload rules: in English, 350 KB or less, in QBO, QFX or CSV format, and with either 3 columns (Date, Description, Amount) or 4 (Date, Description, Credit, Debit). Then check every uploaded line against the file before adding any.

For example, a checking account's feed stops with error 350. The newest item delivered before the break is dated June 11, and after renewal the earliest delivered item is dated June 24. The bank's file for June 11 to 24 holds 18 lines; four of them, two on each boundary day, are already in the register, so 14 lines are uploaded, totaling 3,100.00 in and 2,450.75 out.

How do you confirm the period is complete?

Agree the period to the statement as issued on three numbers: the count of items, the total money in and the total money out. Checking all three catches more than the ending balance does: a missing deposit and a missing withdrawal of the same size leave the balance unchanged, but not the count or the totals. Do this even when the feed looks healthy again, because a working feed shows that delivery resumed, not where it resumed from. Read the QuickBooks side from the account register (Chart of accounts, then View register); Intuit's help for registers describes its Filter icon and sorting by date, which let you isolate the statement period before you count the lines and total the deposits and payments. Continuing the example for June:

When all three agree and the boundary days match the statement line by line, the period is complete; a reconciliation that still will not balance afterwards is a separate diagnosis. If the count agrees but a total does not, look for an amount that changed when a pending item posted. If the count disagrees, list the statement lines by date and amount and find each one in QuickBooks before uploading anything more.

When is it not yours to fix, and what should you hand over?

Take it to the bank when you cannot sign in, the bank's challenge still fails after you have answered it or entered a fresh code, the account was closed or suspended, access was revoked, or there is an outage, maintenance notice or account message at the bank. Reach the bank through the number on your statement or card, or an address you type yourself, never through a link in an unexpected message about your feed. Take it to the platform when you can sign in at the bank and the items show there as posted, but the error survives a renewal, a renumbered account still will not map after Fix now, or, with no error showing, the items are still absent beyond the 48 hours Intuit's help allows for them to come over, despite a manual Update and a retry in a private browser window. Intuit's help for error 350 says that if you're still seeing the error, contact QuickBooks support.

Gather this before either call:

• The platform and plan, and the error code with its exact wording
• The bank, whose sign-in the connection uses (never the password), and every account under it, marked working or not
• The date of the last successful update and of the newest delivered item for each account
• Two or three items posted at the bank but absent from the feed, with date and amount
• What changed recently and what you have already tried, including the private-window retry, each with its date

How do you notice sooner next time?

The costly version of this problem surfaces at period end. Once a week, compare each account's newest delivered item with the bank's own activity page, and treat any lag as step 1 of the checklist.