Frequently Asked Questions

To reinstall your MoneyThumb converter on a new computer or hard drive, you will need your download link and license code.

If you do not have them, please visit Resend License. Please note: you will need to enter either your email address or order number for us to locate your license information. You will then receive a new email with your license code and download information. For installation instructions see Installation Tips.

Although Quicken officially stopped support for the QIF format more than 10 years ago, Quicken for Windows versions up through 2016 (other than the starter edition) continue to read bank, credit and investment accounts so long as the QIF files are created with an account name entry. All QIF files created by our converters contain this entry, and are importable. You do have to import them via the Quicken File Import menu (no double clicking), and set up the import dialog as described in the MoneyThumb Help file.

When you import a .qbo file into QuickBooks, either desktop or online, you do through via QuickBooks Bank Feeds. Bank Feeds displays the downloaded payee name for each transaction. You need to specify the QuickBooks payee and assign an account name for transactions. Bank Feeds creates rules as you go through that process, so subsequent transactions from the same payee will default to the same account. Once most of your customers/vendors have been processed once, everything becomes automatic.

QFX and QXF formats are easily confused, but are very different.

QFX is a download format, designed for the import of bank transactions into a single Quicken account. In Quicken menus it is referred to as Web Connect format, and in Windows Explorer it will show up as OFX (since QFX is a variation of OFX).

QXF is an encrypted file transfer format designed to move entire Quicken databases with multiple accounts from Windows to Mac or visa versa. It is used when changing platforms and/or migrating your accounting software.

QIF is an older format accepted on all versions of Quicken for Windows (other than the Starter Editions), and on Quicken for Mac 2007. QFX is accepted by both Quicken for Windows and Quicken for Mac, so long as they have not expired (Quicken expires the capability to download or import QFX files after 3 years).

QFX format is easier to work with, but does not import categories or tags. QIF does import categories, tags, and cash accounts, too, but is harder to use.

When judging ease of use, QFX import prevents duplicate imports, while QIF format does not. QIF import also requires more clicks, and imported transactions can be invisible with incorrect Quicken settings.

Yes, MoneyThumb converters create QBO files that are read by all non-expired versions of QuickBooks desktop and by QuickBooks Online.

MoneyThumb software is licensed to you as an individual. You may install the software on up to three computers so long as you are the sole user. If you wish to share a converter between multiple users, please write us at [email protected] Let us know which converter you are interested in, and the number of users, and we will provide you a custom quote.

PDF+ is MoneyThumb’s OCR option to handle scanned documents, or internally encrypted PDF files (these have gibberish if you copy/paste the text into another program). OCR stands for “optical character recognition”, a computational technique that converts an image file into letter and numerical data that can be read by a wide range of applications.

Simply run the conversion as you ordinarily would. If the PDF file does not contain readable text, then the converter will automatically switch to PDF+ and process the file as an image file. If your file contains previous OCR text recognition, then the converter will use that text. Please note: some scanners will automatically run built-in OCR, which generally are not very accurate. To ignore previous OCR, use the Settings option for Always run PDF+ text recognition (OCR). After running PDF+, you can edit and even add transactions in Preview mode in case anything was not recognized.

The accuracy of OCR depends on both the quality of the original document and the scan. Best results are achieved by setting your scanner’s scan density to 300dpi. A clean document, scanned at 300 dpi, should produce 100% accuracy. However, in the real world, dust on the paper or scanner can cause individual characters to be confused and thus cause transactions to be missed or value transposed. If your documents are poor quality, then your PDF+ results will likely be, too.

PDF+ is different than other OCR programs because it uses MoneyThumb’s proprietary PinPoint OCR technology. This OCR technology does a typical OCR process first, like other OCR programs, and then attempts to process the statement. Then, after the statement has been processed, it will attempt to reconcile it to verify that all transactions have been found. If the statement does not reconcile, PDF+ will go back through the statement looking for values that might have been missed. For example, if a period had a piece of dust that caused it to be recognized as a comma, or a 5 was recognized as an S, then the value would not have been recognized as a currency value. Once PDF+ knows that a column should contain values of a certain type, it will attempt to recognize those values again, using the column context to restrict OCR to desired values.

Should PDF+ still not reconcile the statement, it will highlight exactly which values are in question and in need of manual attention to produce final reconciliation.

If your existing OCR process is 100% accurate, then you don’t need PDF+. However, we have found that even the best OCR programs will transpose a character every now and then, which causes financial statement conversions to not reconcile. PDF+ is designed to automatically correct transposition errors based on their context in the bank statement.
Furthermore, many OCR programs keep the original image and put all recognized text behind it. The only way to see what was really found is to select the text in a PDF viewer, and then copy/paste it to another program such as a document or text editor. Then you must review the text closely to see if its accurate, especially for character transpositions such as ./, 5/s, 0/O etc.

No, there is no limit. The converters are routinely tested with 100MB data files, and contain upwards of 50,000 transactions. Those conversions take less than 30 seconds to process. Converting PDF files will take more time, and text recognition will take even more time.

Trial software is fully functional, and will read the entire input file and create a log of all transactions and items processed. The only difference is that the trial version will only write the first 10 transactions or items to the output file (5 transactions for csv input). With that, you can verify that your file has been read correctly, and test the first 10 converted transactions or data elements in your application.

It stands for Financial Institution ID, and is a typically a 4 or 5 digit number that uniquely identifies your bank or brokerage for financial downloads. A given financial institution will have different FID’s for Quicken® and QuickBooks®. Quicken and QuickBooks distinguish between Bank, Credit Card and Investment accounts as well as between Direct Connect and Web-Connect downloads. A given FID is authorized for some combination of account types and download types, and if the Financial Institution is not authorized for what you want to import, files will not be imported by Quicken or QuickBooks software.

First, please recognize that the list of FID’s is created by QuickBooks, not by MoneyThumb. QuickBooks will not import files unless they use an FID from a bank on the FID list. MoneyThumb converters can only read the list.

If your Financial Institution is not listed for the account type you want to import, then the workaround is to use an FID of some other Financial Institution supported by QuickBooks for the correct type of account. You can choose any bank you want, generally it is best to select a well-known bank, and one in which you don’t have other accounts. You can also name the account with the real bank name, but QuickBooks will have a different name in the account details.

Please follow these guidelines to create the best scans for PDF+ and PinPoint OCR.
• Make sure your original statement is crisp and clean
• Your scanner settings should be for high resolution – preferably 300dpi
• Make sure your scanned document forms a 90 degree right angle (not tilted)
• Ensure your scanner is free from dirt, scratch marks or even stray hairs
• Your scanned document should not include any markup annotations
• Incorrect brightness settings can affect scan output. 50% value is best
• Older and discolored documents may not produce useful OCR
If these tips are followed, your document should be near or entirely free of speckles.

First, please recognize that the list of FID’s is created by Quicken, not by MoneyThumb. Quicken will not import files unless they use an FID from a bank on the FID list. MoneyThumb converters can only read the list.

If your Financial Institution is not listed for the account type you want to import, then the workaround is to use an FID of some other Financial Institution that is supported by Quicken for the correct type of account. You can choose any bank you want, generally it is best to select a well-known bank, and one in which you don’t have other accounts. You can also name the account with the real bank name, but Quicken will have a different name in the account details.