QIF
| Filename extension | .qif |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Intuit |
Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) is an open specification for reading and writing financial data to media (i.e. files).
Although still widely used, QIF is a format older than Open Financial Exchange (OFX). The inability to reconcile imported transactions against the current account information is one of the primary shortcomings of QIF. Most personal money management software, such as Microsoft Money, GnuCash and Quicken's low end products (e.g. Quicken Personal and Quicken Personal Plus), can read QIF files to import information. Intuit's Quicken used to be able to import QIF, too, but with its 2006 version it dropped that support for several important account types, including checking, savings, and credit card accounts. The Australian version of Quicken still allows the importing of QIF files for these account types, however, unlike the American version, it is not possible to export data to QIF or any other file type, for any account type. The QIF format does not allow a user to mark the currency in which a transaction was completed. In some cases this may cause problems for users who do use multiple currencies when they export or import into another software package.
Quicken's proposed replacement for the QIF format has been the Quicken Web Connect (QFX) format. It is commonly supported by financial institutions to supply downloadable information to account holders, especially by banks that support integration of Money or Quicken with their online banking. Not everybody, however, was, or is, happy with this replacement. Some banks dislike it because Quicken (Intuit) charges licensing fees to use QFX. Other banks pass the fees on by charging customers for downloading QFX files. Because Microsoft Money imports either QIF or OFX format files, and Microsoft does not charge banks any licensing fees to use OFX for Money, banks do not normally charge for downloading QIF and OFX files. (QIF and OFX are open formats, free for anyone to use.)
A QIF file typically has the following structure:
Each record ends with a ^ (caret). All the data in the file is stored in ASCII strings, and the file could be edited in any text editor.
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