QFX file: what is inside one, line by line

A QFX file is an OFX 1.x bank download with one extra line, INTU.BID, and Quicken imports it as a Web Connect file. Written from the same five rows, the OFX and QFX files Evidilo produces differ by that line alone. For Quicken, use the bank’s own download: Quicken’s help says it does not support QFX made by conversion software.

A QFX file opened line by line

A QFX file is plain text. Open one in Notepad or TextEdit and the whole thing is there, nothing compressed and nothing binary. The file below is the one Evidilo wrote on 25 October 2026 from a five-row Wells Fargo checking statement for September 2026, the same statement its export tests use. It runs to 88 lines and 1,466 bytes, and reading it from the top goes like this:

1. The first nine lines are a header of colon-separated pairs, starting with OFXHEADER:100 and VERSION:102. This is what marks the file as OFX 1.x, the older form of the standard, written as SGML rather than XML. A blank line ends the header.
2. Then <OFX> opens, and the sign-on block follows: a status code of 0, the time the file was written, the language, and the bank’s name inside <FI>.
3. Line 23 is <INTU.BID>3000, the last line of the sign-on block. Delete it and what is left is the OFX file, byte for byte.
4. The statement block names the currency, the account and its type. In Evidilo’s file BANKID holds the converter’s own short name for the bank, wf, rather than a routing number.
5. Five <STMTTRN> blocks carry the transactions: type, posted date, amount, an id, and the description. A description longer than 32 characters is cut there, and the rest goes into <MEMO>. The id is the part that stops a month importing twice, and how those per-row ids keep a QuickBooks import from doubling covers how Evidilo builds it.
6. The file closes on the ledger balance, 3944.64 dated 20260930, and then the closing tags.

<SONRS>
<STATUS>
<CODE>0
<SEVERITY>INFO
</STATUS>
<DTSERVER>20261025120000
<LANGUAGE>ENG
<FI>
<ORG>Wells Fargo
</FI>
<INTU.BID>3000
</SONRS>

QFX vs OFX: one line apart

We wrote the same five rows through Evidilo’s OFX writer and its QFX writer on 25 October 2026 and compared the two files line by line:

The extra bytes are the INTU.BID line and its line ending. The transactions, the ids, the dates and the balance are identical, so a program that reads OFX finds nothing new in the QFX version. The last row comes from Quicken’s import guide for Windows, which says “Quicken cannot import Excel (.xls), QuickBooks, PDF, or OFX files” and that a Web Connect file can be recognised “by the .QFX extension in its file name”. For the OFX side on its own, the OFX file format, tag by tag goes further.

The 3000 on line 23

Evidilo is a bank statement to accounting import file converter: it reads a PDF, a scan, a photo of a paper statement, a CSV, an Excel or Word file or an OFX/QFX file, and writes QBO, IIF, OFX, QFX, QIF, CSV or Excel. Before it writes any of them it adds up every row against the opening, closing and daily balances the bank printed, and marks the first day that does not tie out. The 3000 it puts in INTU.BID is a placeholder. Evidilo’s source code says so, because Intuit’s institution id for the file is unconfirmed, and no QFX file Evidilo has written has been opened in Quicken. Its QBO file, written from the same rows, came out byte for byte the same as the QFX.

What Quicken says it checks

None of the three Quicken support pages read for this post mentions INTU.BID, so nothing here claims that Quicken checks that line. What Quicken’s Web Connect troubleshooting page does say:

• Web Connect files need Quicken’s online services “to validate the file and the transactions for security purposes.”
• “If the financial institution no longer supports Web Connect in Quicken, the file cannot be authorized when importing.”
• “Quicken does not support QFX files created by third-party conversion software (such as PDF-to-QFX conversion).” The next sentence: “If you use one of these applications and the converted file does not open, we will be unable to assist.”

So the check happens online, against the institution, and Quicken does not say which line of the file it reads to do it. The same page adds that a file cannot be downloaded on an expired subscription or an unsupported version of Quicken. Evidilo is third-party conversion software in exactly the sense that sentence means. If the destination is Quicken, the QFX to use is the one your bank’s own Web Connect download produces.

How to open a QFX file

Opening one to read is easy. Opening one as data is where it goes wrong, because OFX 1.x leaves the end tag off every value. We ran Python’s strict XML parser, xml.etree, over the QFX file:

1. On the whole file it stopped at once with “syntax error: line 1, column 0”, because OFXHEADER:100 is not XML.
2. With the header removed it stopped with “mismatched tag: line 7, column 2”, on </STATUS>, because <CODE>0 two lines above it was never closed.
3. The file holds 44 values like that and 17 closing tags, all of them on blocks. A reader that wants well-formed XML meets the first one and stops.

For reading, a text editor is the right tool. For a program, open it with one that reads OFX itself: Quicken for a bank’s own Web Connect file, or a converter that writes something a spreadsheet understands.

QFX file to Excel

Evidilo takes a QFX file as input, as well as writing one, and gives back CSV or Excel with the rows added up against the statement’s balances. Of the two, the Excel file is usually the better one to open, for the reasons set out in which of a bank statement CSV or Excel file to open. If your bank offers a CSV download beside its QFX, that is the shorter route to a spreadsheet.

How was this checked?

On 25 October 2026 we wrote one five-row Wells Fargo checking statement through Evidilo’s production OFX, QFX and QBO writers under Node 22, compared the files line by line, and parsed them with Python 3.11’s xml.etree. The same day we read three Quicken support pages and kept their exact sentences. The results are in dataset.csv, and check.py reruns the whole check and fails if a number or a quote has changed.

Before you import a QFX file

Why will Quicken not import my QFX file?

Quicken validates a Web Connect file through its online services, and its help says a file cannot be authorized when the bank no longer supports Web Connect. A converted file is a second reason: Quicken does not support QFX from third-party conversion software, and Evidilo’s QFX, which carries a placeholder INTU.BID of 3000, has not been tried in Quicken. A fresh download from the bank’s own site is the file Quicken documents.

What does INTU.BID mean in a QFX file?

It is the tag that makes an OFX file a QFX file; in the files compared here it is the only difference. Evidilo’s source code describes the value as Intuit’s institution id and writes 3000 as a placeholder. Quicken’s support pages do not explain the tag at all.

Can I turn a QFX file into an OFX file?

For a file Evidilo wrote, deleting the INTU.BID line leaves its OFX file byte for byte. Evidilo can also read a QFX and write OFX directly. A bank’s own QFX may carry more Intuit lines than this one, which this check did not measure, and Quicken for Windows will not import the OFX either way.

Is a QFX file the same as a QBO file?

In Evidilo’s output, yes: written from the same five rows, the QBO and QFX files were identical down to the byte. What differs is the extension, and Quicken’s import guide says the .QFX extension is how a Web Connect file is recognised. Files that banks produce were not compared here.

Can I open a QFX file in Microsoft Excel?

Not as a table. The file is OFX 1.x with 44 values that have no end tag, so a reader expecting XML stops at the first one. Evidilo reads the QFX and writes an Excel or CSV file from it; a text editor such as Notepad shows the contents without converting anything.