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Online banking: Setting up Direct Connect

October 26, 2011 by
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Direct Connect is awesome. Once you set it up, you can just automatically download your bank transaction into QuickBooks.

Two important things you need to know before you start

  • Not all financial institutions support Direct Connect for QuickBooks for Mac. We’ll help you figure out if yours does, at the beginning of the setup. If yours doesn’t, it may use Web Connect. If you really want to use Direct Connect, be sure to contact your bank and tell them you need this feature.
  • Before you can use Direct Connect, contact your financial institution to activate your account for use with QuickBooks online services. The account with your financial institution must be a business account. Your financial institution may charge you a fee for using this service. If you are unable to set up Direct Connect successfully, try using Web Connect instead.

OK, here we go. Remember you only need to do this set up once. After you’re set up with Direct Connect, choose Banking > Downloaded Transactions to download your banking info into QuickBooks.

To set up Direct Connect

  1. Choose Banking > Online Banking Setup.
  2. Select your financial institution from the list and click Next. (Sometimes financial institutions present multiple listings, one for Direct Connect (DC) and one for Web Connect (WC). If you see this be sure to select the DC option.)
  3. If you are prompted to select either “Direct connect” or “Web connect,” select “Direct connect” and click Next. (If you do not see the screen, go to the next step.)
  4. Select Yes if you have activated your account for QuickBooks online services and click Next. If you have not activated your account, select No and then click Next to see the contact information for your financial institution.

Now, what you do next depends on how your financial institution works with Direct Connect. To continue, click the option below that describes what you see you on your screen.

Enter customer ID/password you use to access your online account Select an account
  1. For each account at your financial institution, click “Select an Account” to display a list of available QuickBooks Accounts. Choose which QuickBooks account you want to associate with the online account.
  2. Only the QuickBooks accounts applicable to the online banking account type are displayed in the “Select an Account” list. You can only associate a QuickBooks account with one online banking account. To open a new QuickBooks account, click New from the “Select an Account” list, or create a bank, credit card, or Other Current Liability account first.
  3. Click Next to download your transactions.
  4. After QuickBooks has successfully downloaded your transactions, click Finish. The DownloadedTransactions window displays the transactions downloaded from your online banking accounts.
  5. You have completed setting up Direct Connect and can now update your register. Skip any remaining steps.
  1. Select the account type for the account you want to download.
  2. Enter in the account number.
  3. If this is a banking account, enter in the routing number.
  4. Click “Select an Account” to display a list of available QuickBooks Accounts. Choose which QuickBooks account you want to associate with the online account.
  5. Only the QuickBooks accounts applicable to the online banking account type are displayed in the “Select an Account” list. You can only associate a QuickBooks account with one online banking account. To open a new QuickBooks account, click New from the “Select an Account” list, or create a bank, credit card, or Other Current Liability account first.
  6. Enter the customer ID and password you use to access your online account and then click Sign In.
  7. After QuickBooks has successfully downloaded your transactions, click Done. The Downloaded
  8. Transactions window displays the transactions downloaded from your online banking accounts.

Whew! Now you’re ready to download transactions from your bank and update your register.


Filed Under: Banking, Online banking, Square One
About Shelly King

Shelly King works for Intuit as a member of the QuickBooks for Mac team. She’s the Managing Editor for Little Square and its main contributor. Shelly grew up in the South until 1994 when the Internet called her to Silicon Valley. She’s done a lot on the web ever since. Little Square was her idea. Yep, it’s all her fault. See all of Shelly's articles

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