Quicken Interchange Format

Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) is an open specification for reading and writing financial data to media (i.e. files). A QIF file typically has the following structure:

!Type:type identifier string [single character line code]Literal String Data ... ^ [single character line code]Literal String Data ... ^

Each record is ended with a ^ (caret). All the data in the file is stored in ASCII strings, and the file could be edited in any text editor (such as vi in Unix or Notepad in Microsoft Windows).

QIF is older than Open Financial Exchange (OFX). The inability to reconcile imported transactions against the current account information is one of the primary short comings of QIF. It is commonly supported by financial institutions to supply downloadable information to account holders. Most personal money management software (Microsoft Money, Intuit's Quicken versions earlier than 2006) can read QIF files to import information. However, Quicken has dropped support of QIF as of version 2006 [1]. Banks that support integrated online banking (i.e. as part of Money or Quicken) usually use OFX instead of QIF.

Dissecting Quicken QIF Export

Account Enumeration

!Option:AutoSwitch
!Account

N"Account Name String"
D
X
T{Cash,Mutual,Bank,CCard}
B<balance, e.g. 532.68>
^

Category Types

!Clear:AutoSwitch
!Type:Cat

N"Category Name String"
D"Description of Category String"
E
^

Securities

!Type:Security

N"Name of Secuirty e.g. Google"
S<Stock Ticker Symbol e.g. GOOG>
^

Payee

!Type:Payee
!Type:Cat

NAuto
DAutomobile Expenses
E
^

Budget Enumeration

!Type:Cat

NAuto
DAutomobile Expenses
E
^

!Type:Budget

NAuto
DAutomobile Expenses
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
B-35.00
^

Classes

!Type:Class

N"Name of Class String"
D"Description of Class String"
^

Account Transaction Enumeration

!Account
N"Name of Account String"
D
X
T{Bank,CCard,Cash,Mutual,Oth L,Port}
B<balance, e.g. 532.68>
^
!Type:{Bank,CCard,Cash,Invst,Oth L}

Bank Transaction

Just like Cash Transaction, but has "CX" line after the six A's.

Some banks do not use the "A" or "CX" lines. Below is an example of several types of transactions in a typical downloaded bank account QIF file.
Coding appears to be D=Date, P=Payee info or transaction type, M=Memo, T=Total, N=Item Number:

!Type:Bank
D12/16/2005
PCHECK
T-128.48
N7033
^
D12/15/2005
PSVH BRIDGEPORT EFT
M051215 7030 LANCPA
T-55.54
N7030
^
D11/03/2005
PDEPOSIT
T3383.08
^
D10/20/2005
POVERDRAWN FEE
T-6.00
^
D10/05/2005
PCHECK RETURNED
T100.00
^
D05/15/2006
PPAYPAL INST XFER
M060513 5ZK222L734D7N
T-44.00
^
D04/18/2006
PMBNA ONLINE PYMT
MONLINE PMT 060418CKFXXXXX0528POS
T-300.00
^

Cash Transaction

D4/30/04
P"Payee String e.g. McDonalds"
M"Memo Text String e.g. quarter pounder"
T40.00
A
A
A
A
A
A
L<category>
[S"Split Category Name String"]
[E"Split Memo String"]
[$<split amount>]
^

Mutual Transaction

D10/31/05
NReinvDiv
Y"Account Name String"
I1
Q0.97
T0.97
^

CCard Transaction

Just like Cash Transaction

Oth L

"Other Lender" Transaction is like Bank Transaction or Cash Transaction

Securities Price History

!Type:Prices

"GOOG",108.310,"8/20/04",109.080,100.500,11429498
"GOOG",106.150,"8/27/04",108.620,105.690,3108977
^

External links

Specification
How to parse online bank QIF with sed
Python script to convert QIF to RDF. Look for def extract(path). Script provided by SWAP.
GnuCash QIF format notes