How to upload bank transactions from a bank statement

This article explains how to upload bank transactions from a bank statement in FreeAgent.

The quickest and easiest way to do this is to download a bank statement from your online banking and upload it into FreeAgent. Once you've done this, you can explain the transactions.

You can also enable a bank feed to import your bank transactions into FreeAgent automatically.

1. Download a bank statement from your online banking

First, you'll need to log in to your online banking and download a bank statement in a format supported by FreeAgent. For information on downloading a bank statement, please ask your bank.

If your bank doesn’t support OFX or QIF bank statement formats when downloading a bank statement from your online banking, you’ll need to download a CSV file instead and format it before you can upload it into FreeAgent.

When you're downloading a bank statement, make sure that it includes the correct dates. If you already have bank transactions in your FreeAgent account, make sure that the statement is dated from the day after the last transaction's date. If you don't have any bank transactions in your FreeAgent account, you might want the statement to be dated from your FreeAgent start date. FreeAgent will aim to spot any duplicate transactions and ignore them.

2. Upload the statement in FreeAgent

Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop-down menu.

Choose the bank account that you're going to upload a statement into. 

Then, select 'Upload Statement'. 

Alternatively, choose 'Upload a Statement' from the 'Quick Links' menu on the 'Overview' screen. If you use this option, FreeAgent will ask you to choose which bank account to upload to.

Once you've downloaded your bank statement from your online banking and saved it to your computer in the correct format, select 'Select a file' to choose the file you've just saved.

Guess is a FreeAgent feature that attempts to automatically explain your bank transactions based on existing information in your FreeAgent account. If you want to disable this feature, untick the 'Guess explanations for my transactions' checkbox.

Select 'Upload Statement' to complete the process.

Once you've uploaded your transactions, the next step is to explain them.

If you need to, you can undo a bank statement upload.