Every QuickBooks file extension explained: QBW, QBB, QBM, QBO, QFX, OFX, IIF and CSV, what each one does, and which formats QuickBooks actually accepts for bank transactions.
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Short answer: QuickBooks uses about a dozen file extensions, and only a few of them matter day to day. .QBW is your company file, .QBB is its backup, and .QBO is the Web Connect bank statement file you import to get transactions into the register. QuickBooks Desktop reads bank transactions from .qbo, .qfx and .ofx files only. It will not read a CSV. QuickBooks Online reads .qbo plus a mapped CSV. If you have a CSV from your bank, converting it to .qbo in the converter above gives you the one format both editions accept.
Most of the confusion here comes from two families of file that look related and are not. One family is your accounting data: the company file, its backups, the copies you hand an accountant. The other family is financial exchange formats: the files banks give you and the files you import. Mixing them up is why people try to open a .qbo by double clicking it, or email a .qbw to a bookkeeper who cannot open it.
Last updated July 2026.
Built for the CSV and Excel exports US banks and cards actually send, checked before it exports.
The converter adds up the transactions it parsed and matches that to your file total before you export, so nothing is silently dropped.
Valid OFX 1.02 with QuickBooks Web Connect headers. Online and Desktop import it as a standard bank feed.
Date, description, and amount are detected for you, so you skip QuickBooks' strict 3-column and 4-column CSV layout.
Bulk upload for catch-up and cleanup work. Each file gets its own reconciliation check and its own exports.
Mixed date formats, currency symbols, and stray commas that break a raw CSV import are cleaned up before the .qbo is built.
One conversion, three files: the .qbo for QuickBooks, an XLSX to review, and a CSV for everything else.
Three steps. No column-mapping wizard.
Drag in a CSV, XLS, or XLSX export from your bank, credit card, or accounting tool. Any column order is fine.
Every transaction is parsed and checked against your file total. You see the rows before exporting.
Download the .qbo and import it as a Web Connect bank feed. Excel and CSV are in the same download.
The specifics that decide whether the import is clean. If your case is not here, message us in chat.
QuickBooks Desktop uses .QBW for the working company file, .QBB for backups, .QBM for a compressed portable copy, and .QBX, .QBA and .QBY for the Accountant's Copy round trip. For data coming in and out, it uses .QBO for bank transactions (Web Connect), .IIF for lists and transactions in tab delimited text, and .CSV or Excel for reports you export. Supporting files like .ND and .TLG sit beside the company file and are managed by QuickBooks itself.
| Extension | What it is | You use it when | Can it carry bank transactions? |
|---|---|---|---|
| .QBW | QuickBooks company file (the live working data) | Every time you open QuickBooks Desktop | It is the destination, not a transport file |
| .QBB | Backup copy of the company file | Restoring after a crash or data loss | No |
| .QBM | Portable company file, a compressed copy | Emailing a whole company file to someone | No |
| .QBX / .QBA / .QBY | Accountant's Copy: transfer file, accountant's working file, and the change file sent back | Your CPA adjusts a prior period while you keep working | No |
| .QBJ | General journal entries file | Importing journal entries your accountant prepared | Journal entries, not bank feed transactions |
| .QBO | Web Connect bank statement file, an Intuit variant of OFX | Importing bank and credit card transactions into either edition | Yes. This is the format QuickBooks is built for |
| .QFX | Quicken's variant of OFX | Importing into Quicken; QuickBooks Desktop also reads it | Yes, in Desktop |
| .OFX | Open Financial Exchange, the underlying open standard | Many accounting apps read it | Yes, in Desktop |
| .IIF | Intuit Interchange Format, tab delimited text | Bulk loading lists and some transactions into Desktop | Technically yes, but it bypasses the bank feed and the matching process |
| .CSV | Plain comma separated text from your bank or a report export | QuickBooks Online bank uploads with column mapping | In QuickBooks Online only. Desktop cannot import CSV bank transactions |
| .ND / .TLG | Network data file and transaction log that sit next to the .QBW | Never on purpose. QuickBooks maintains them | No |
| .DES | Layout Designer template for a customized form | Moving an invoice template between company files | No |
A .qbo file is a QuickBooks Web Connect file: a bank statement in Intuit's variant of the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) format. It carries a list of transactions with dates, amounts, descriptions, a transaction ID for each one, and the account it belongs to. It is a text file, not a spreadsheet, and it is meant to be imported rather than opened. QuickBooks reads it, matches the transactions against your register, and posts what is new.
They are three dialects of the same standard. OFX is the open specification. QFX is Quicken's branded variant of it. QBO is Intuit's QuickBooks variant, and it is the one QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop both accept for bank imports. Because they share a structure, the same transaction data can be written into any of the three, which is why a converter can hand you a .qbo when your bank only offers a CSV.
IIF stands for Intuit Interchange Format. It is a tab delimited text file that QuickBooks Desktop can import and export, mostly used to bulk load lists like the chart of accounts, customers, vendors and items, and sometimes transactions. It is old, unforgiving about column headers, and it writes straight into the file without the bank feed's review and match step. QuickBooks Online does not import IIF at all.
QuickBooks Online can, with limits: you upload the CSV, map the date, description and amount columns by hand, and stay under the file size ceiling that long exports blow past. QuickBooks Desktop cannot import CSV bank transactions at all. Its Bank Feeds importer reads .qbo, .qfx and .ofx only. That single fact is behind most of the frustration on this page.
Use .qbo. It works in both editions, it needs no column mapping, it carries a unique ID per transaction so QuickBooks can flag duplicates, and it lands the transactions in the review queue instead of dumping them straight into the register. If your bank hands you a CSV or an Excel export instead, convert it to .qbo and you get the native path back.
You do not open it, you import it. In QuickBooks Desktop go to File, then Utilities, then Import, then Web Connect Files, and pick the .qbo. In QuickBooks Online go to Transactions, then Bank transactions, select the account, and upload the file. If you want to look inside one out of curiosity, any text editor will show you the OFX tags, but editing it by hand is how import errors get made.
The .QBW is the live company file that QuickBooks Desktop reads and writes while you work. The .QBB is a backup snapshot of it, created through File, then Back Up Company. You restore a .QBB to produce a working .QBW again. Never try to work directly out of a backup, and never email a .QBW as a working copy; use a portable file (.QBM) or an Accountant's Copy instead.
It depends on what they are doing. For a full review with you still working, send an Accountant's Copy (.QBX); they work in a .QBA and send back a .QBY change file you import. For a quick look with no round trip, a portable company file (.QBM) is easier. If they only need one account cleaned up, sending the bank .qbo files for the period is often all they actually want.
Because publishing a .qbo download costs the bank money and effort, and a growing number of institutions have quietly dropped it. Fintechs like Mercury, Brex, Ramp, Relay, Novo and Bluevine never offered one, and some issuers retired theirs, as Barclays US did in 2026. A CSV export is cheap for a bank to provide, so it is what survives. Converting that CSV to .qbo puts you back on the format QuickBooks was designed around.
No, and the naming is genuinely unhelpful. QBO as an extension means a Web Connect bank statement file. QBO as an abbreviation means QuickBooks Online, the cloud product. A .qbo file works in both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, so the file format is not tied to the edition its name suggests.
Yes. Upload the CSV, XLS or XLSX export from your bank in the converter at the top of this page, confirm which columns hold the date, description and amount, and download a .qbo file. The converter normalizes dates, strips currency symbols and thousands separators, signs debits and credits the way QuickBooks expects, and gives you a transaction count and total so you can check it against the bank before importing.
Upload a CSV or Excel export, get a QuickBooks-ready .qbo back in seconds. No card to try it.
More on the formats and the imports themselves: the QuickBooks Web Connect file converter, CSV to QuickBooks Desktop, CSV to QuickBooks Online, setting up bank feeds in QuickBooks Desktop, and what to do when a QuickBooks bank feed is not working. If you want to compare tools first, see the best CSV to QBO converters.
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