Import Cleaner for QuickBooks™
QuickBooks bank files that import, and exports that work in Excel. Free to check. It knows it is a QuickBooks file: zeros left blank, a day of the week split out of the date, one date format, and an upload checked against QuickBooks' rules before it fails.
New here? The step-by-step guide runs the whole thing from opening the pane to a fixed sheet.
Before
Rejected
A bank file with 0.00 in the Amount column, Tue 03/03/2026 as a date, and a heading called “Credit Amount”.
After
Ready
Zeros left blank, the weekday in its own column, the headings QuickBooks expects. A preview first, and Undo is always there.
What it does
Generic data-cleaning add-ins can tell you a column is text. They cannot tell you that a
QuickBooks bank upload wants a zero amount left blank, that a day of the week attached to a
date is refused, or that (45.00) is a negative. This one knows it is a
QuickBooks file.
Two directions, one pane:
- Out of QuickBooks. Export dates not working in Excel, numbers stored as text that will not sum, bracketed negatives, and the trailing and non-breaking spaces every export carries.
- Into QuickBooks. A check before you upload: missing or misspelled columns, dates that are not in one readable format, a bank file whose amount is split across Credit and Debit, and zeros that QuickBooks wants blank.
The one to know about
A QuickBooks bank upload wants a zero amount left blank, not typed as 0 or
0.00. Bank exports and hand-built sheets are full of them, and QuickBooks
rejects the line or the file. Finding those cells and emptying them, with a preview and an
Undo, is the reason this add-in exists.
What it covers
QuickBooks Online (UK), by spreadsheet only: the add-in never connects to QuickBooks.
- Bank uploads: the 3-column form (Date, Description, Amount) and the 4-column form (Date, Description, Credit, Debit).
- Customers and suppliers: the contacts file, with its Full Name and Company Name columns.
- Journal entries: Journal No., Journal Date, Account Name, Debits and Credits.
- Report exports: a transaction report or similar export, cleaned for use in Excel.
- Invoices, chart of accounts and products and services imports: help text only for now, no checks yet.
Nothing ambiguous is applied quietly
06/03/2026 is two real dates. The pane asks once, then lists every value that
could be read both ways before it writes anything. That report is not a footnote
— it is the screen.
What it checks
Every finding carries a rule code, so a report you read again in six months still says which check produced which line.
Cleaning an export
QE-01 | Report title lines above the headers, and basis or date-stamp lines below |
QE-02 | Total, Subtotal and balance rows mixed in with the data |
QE-03 | Account name only on a group heading row |
QE-04 | Stray spaces, including non-breaking ones |
QE-05 | Dates stored as text, with the ambiguity report |
QE-06 | Amounts stored as text, and bracketed negatives |
QE-07 | Blank spacer columns between real ones |
QE-08 | Debit and Credit columns to one signed amount |
Checking before an upload
QI-01 | Zeros in Amount, Credit or Debit, which QuickBooks wants blank |
QI-02 | Credit and Debit headings that include the word “Amount” |
QI-03 | A day of the week attached to a date |
QI-04 | Dates that are not in one readable format, or that read two ways |
QI-05 | Files over the row and size limits (bank files: 1,000 lines and 350 KB, or 500 lines on the Sole Trader plan, per Intuit's help) |
QI-06 | Amount used with Credit or Debit, one-sided Credit and Debit, missing columns |
QI-07 | Currency symbols, separators and special characters in amounts and descriptions |
QI-08 | Customers and suppliers: names with a colon or quote, duplicates, headings, tab name, blanks |
QI-09 | Journals: balance per journal, blank cells, a Name missing on Creditors or Debtors lines |
QI-12 | Line breaks inside cells, and a semicolon-separated file that landed in one column |
QI-15 | Spaces in blank cells and around values |
See the guide for what the rules mean. The rules are built from QuickBooks' published help pages; where a behaviour could not be confirmed, the rule explains the problem and leaves your cells alone.
Also for Google Sheets™: Import Cleaner for QuickBooks™ for Google Sheets. The same licence key works in Excel™ and Google Sheets.
Support
Email support@appgarden.co.uk. Include the Excel platform you are on (Windows, Mac or the web) and what the pane showed. If a check reported something you believe is wrong, the file itself is the most useful thing you can send — but only send one you are content to share, and read the privacy notice first.
Replies are best-effort, usually within a few working days. There is no phone line.
Using it
Open the file, then Home › QuickBooks import › Check sheet. Choose which way the file is going — Clean a QuickBooks export or Check before uploading — and the pane names the file type from its headers, lists what is wrong in QuickBooks' terms, and shows a preview of every fix before it writes.
There is no score. A sheet with findings never reads as clean.
Free and paid
The whole check is free, in both directions, along with every explanation — and the space fix is applied for free too. Pro adds every other fix and remembers the date format per import type.
Undo is free in every tier, always. It is not a paid feature, it does not lapse with a licence, and it keeps working after one is cancelled. An add-in that can write to your workbook but charges to reverse it would be indefensible.
A Pro licence covers three installs — a desktop, a laptop and a machine that gets rebuilt. It is £4 a month or £39 a year. Prices and checkout.
Paddle is the merchant of record and takes the payment. The terms of service, the refund policy — a full refund within 30 days of any payment — and the privacy notice set out the rest.
Your licence key
Keys are shown on screen at the end of checkout and emailed to the address you paid with. Keep the page, or paste the key straight into the pane under Licence. Lost it? Check that email, or email support with the address you paid on.
Entering the key stores an entitlement on that machine. If Office clears its storage — which it does on the web, and Safari does on its own — re-entering the same key does not cost you a seat.
Known limits
- The date format is asked, not detected. Nothing inside a QuickBooks file states it. The pane asks once and then reports every ambiguous value it acted on, which is the honest version of a guess.
- It reads the active sheet, not the file on disk, so a file's encoding is not visible to it. What it can see — a line break inside a cell, or text already mangled by being opened as Latin-1 — it reports.
- Values it cannot read are never rewritten. A date this add-in cannot parse is explained rather than guessed at, because a wrong date posted to a ledger is worse than a date the tool declined to touch.
- QuickBooks' rules change. The checks follow QuickBooks' published UK help pages as at the build date. Several behaviours could not yet be confirmed against a real QuickBooks company, so those rules explain and warn but never rewrite your cells. An account that does not exist in your QuickBooks company cannot be seen from a sheet.
- Excel on Mac and on iPad are untested. The manifest permits them, so Microsoft lists them, but no verification run has happened on either. Please report anything odd.
Your data
Nothing in your workbook leaves your machine. The add-in asks Excel for one permission, to read and change the open workbook, and talks to one server, only about your licence key. It never connects to QuickBooks: it edits the workbook only, and you upload the file to QuickBooks yourself. Details in the privacy notice.