I’ve decided to get ahead of my bookkeeping this year, instead of spending Christmas break going back through my notes. Sure, I’m four months behind, but better late than never.

So the “easy” way to do this is to type every single transaction into Quickbooks (I use Self-Employed, for what it’s worth). The interface is functional but clunky, and the thought of adding a year’s worth of monthly subscriptions really hurts.

I could also import all transactions from my bank and credit card via xls/csv export and import, but some things (like cash transactions) would be easier to do in my own csv import file.

I found a downloadable package of sample import files, but they seem more complicated than what I need for this effort.

So I made my own import file in Excel, exported as csv of course, and tried to import it to Quickbooks.

Darn. File upload failed. (Probably our fault.) Please give it another try. If you see this message again, you might need to contact us.

I did what they told me to and chatted in to Quickbooks support. The first thing they suggested was a fresh reload of the upload/import page, which I did with Ctrl+F5. That got me farther, but my next error was:

Uh-oh, looks like we ran into some trouble importing this file at line Cannot read properties of null (reading ‘code’). Look for a date or an amount that shows odd formatting. Correct it and try again.”

After reporting that error, I got the tip I needed from my customer service agent.

The format must be either Date, Description, Amount or Date, Description, Credit, Debit. Make sure there is no total amount at the bottom, and the file contains only 3 or 4 columns.

This in fact resolved my issue. Of course the thing I didn’t think about was that in the first format, debits have to be negative. So I then had imported entries that I can exclude, but not delete, showing a *credit* for each of my eBay fees. Oops.

For now, I will exclude those credits, and import the transactions I need with the actual debit (negative) notation. And unlike past years, I’ll try to do it as I go, rather than at the end.

Have you found any tips in Quickbooks that your google-fu didn’t solve for you? Share in the comments!