Bank CSV amount direction
A column label is not enough to determine transaction direction. Confirm the account type and compare a few transactions whose meaning you already know.
Updated August 10, 2026 · Examples use fictional data.
Here, credit and debit describe the columns or signs in a bank transaction export. This page does not explain journal-entry debits and credits, assign categories, reconcile an account, or provide accounting advice.
The target header is Date, Description, Amount. For a checking or savings workflow, deposits are normally positive and payments are negative.
The target header is Date, Description, Credit, Debit. Store a positive number on one side and leave the unused side blank.
A payment to a credit-card account and a purchase affect the balance differently from a bank deposit and withdrawal. Use the target account, not the word “credit,” as the deciding context.
Find a recognizable deposit, fee, purchase, and payment. Confirm their direction in the preview before downloading the full file.
A formatter should expose the inferred mapping and allow correction. It should not reverse every amount because a bank uses an unfamiliar header.
Credit and debit totals can reveal a mapping mistake, but they do not prove that transactions are categorized or reconciled correctly.
Date,Description,Credit,Debit 07/08/2026,Fictional Refund,25.00, 07/09/2026,Fictional Supply Store,,63.40
Compare this row shape with the downloadable 3-column example and 4-column example. Every name, date, and amount in those files is fictional.
The QuickBooks CSV formatter accepts one CSV, TXT, or XLSX file up to the displayed browser limits. It maps the source to a 3-column or 4-column bank CSV and generates that CSV locally. It does not upload the source, identify the account type for you, import the result into QuickBooks, or generate a QBO file from this workflow.
Use the QuickBooks CSV formatter to map the source columns and inspect the signed result without uploading the file.