The short answer
The PayPal file has 41 columns, dates written as M/D/YYYY and one signed amount column. QuickBooks Online wants a CSV with the columns Date,Description,Amount. So the date is rewritten as DD/MM/YYYY, the amount is written as one signed number, and the text columns are moved as in the table below.
Paid pack. The PayPal profile is one of the 35 profiles unlocked by a licence (9 US dollars, paid once; see the terms). Without a licence you can still convert this file with the free manual column mapper, using the column table on this page, within the free limit of 25 rows per file.
The converter runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded.
What the PayPal CSV looks like
- Country: International.
- Account type: activity download (default columns).
- Header row: yes, one row before the first transaction.
- Columns: 41, separated by commas.
- Date format: M/D/YYYY, for example 3/4/2024 (the source writes it as %-m/%-d/%Y).
- Amounts: one signed amount column. Evidence for the direction: the source says it in words.
- Header text: the source prints it, so the columns below carry their real names.
Note kept with this layout in the profile data: Forty-one default columns as listed by the source for 2018. The user can choose which columns PayPal exports and the date format follows the account's region (a second rules file in the same repository uses day-month-year with dashes), so the converter must match columns by header name, not by position, and confirm the date order in the preview. Gross is used as the amount; Fee and Net are separate columns. The file can contain email addresses of the other party: the converter must not copy those columns to the output.
What QuickBooks Online accepts
- File type: CSV.
- Header row: yes, with the column names of one of the two layouts.
- 3-column layout: Date, Description, Amount. The vendor's example row: 1/1/2018,Example of a payment,-100.00
- 4-column layout: Date, Description, Credit, Debit. The vendor's example row: 1/1/2018,Example of a deposit,200.00,
- Required columns: Date, Description, Amount.
- Amounts: 3-column layout: one signed Amount column, a payment is negative (the vendor's example payment is -100.00). 4-column layout: separate Credit and Debit columns.
- Dates: one consistent format; the global edition of the page recommends dd/mm/yyyy, and its example rows use 1/1/2018.
| QuickBooks Online column | Required by QuickBooks Online | Filled from the PayPal file |
|---|---|---|
| Date | required | column 1 "Date" |
| Description | required | column 4 "Name", column 5 "Type" and column 16 "Item Title" |
| Amount | required | column 8 "Gross" |
From the vendor's help page: "QuickBooks accepts CSVs with either the 3-column or 4-column format": Date, Description, Amount; or Date, Description, Credit, Debit.
Column-by-column mapping
Every column of the PayPal file, left to right, and where it ends up in the QuickBooks Online file.
| Column | Header text | What it holds | Where it goes in the QuickBooks Online file |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Transaction date | Date, rewritten as DD/MM/YYYY |
| 2 | Time | Not used | Not copied |
| 3 | TimeZone | Not used | Not copied |
| 4 | Name | Payee or counterparty | Description (first part) |
| 5 | Type | Description | Description, after the payee |
| 6 | Status | Not used | Not copied |
| 7 | Currency | Currency | Not copied |
| 8 | Gross | Amount, signed (negative is money out) | Amount, sign kept (money out is negative) |
| 9 | Fee | Not used | Not copied |
| 10 | Net | Not used | Not copied |
| 11 | From Email Address | Not used | Not copied |
| 12 | To Email Address | Not used | Not copied |
| 13 | Transaction ID | Reference or check number | Not copied |
| 14 | Shipping Address | Not used | Not copied |
| 15 | Address Status | Not used | Not copied |
| 16 | Item Title | Memo or note | Description, after the bank's description text |
| 17 | Item ID | Not used | Not copied |
| 18 | Shipping and Handling Amount | Not used | Not copied |
| 19 | Insurance Amount | Not used | Not copied |
| 20 | Sales Tax | Not used | Not copied |
| 21 | Option 1 Name | Not used | Not copied |
| 22 | Option 1 Value | Not used | Not copied |
| 23 | Option 2 Name | Not used | Not copied |
| 24 | Option 2 Value | Not used | Not copied |
| 25 | Reference Txn ID | Not used | Not copied |
| 26 | Invoice Number | Not used | Not copied |
| 27 | Custom Number | Not used | Not copied |
| 28 | Quantity | Not used | Not copied |
| 29 | Receipt ID | Not used | Not copied |
| 30 | Balance | Running balance | Not copied |
| 31 | Address Line 1 | Not used | Not copied |
| 32 | Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood | Not used | Not copied |
| 33 | Town/City | Not used | Not copied |
| 34 | State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic | Not used | Not copied |
| 35 | Zip/Postal Code | Not used | Not copied |
| 36 | Country | Not used | Not copied |
| 37 | Contact Phone Number | Not used | Not copied |
| 38 | Subject | Not used | Not copied |
| 39 | Note | Not used | Not copied |
| 40 | Country Code | Not used | Not copied |
| 41 | Balance Impact | Not used | Not copied |
Pitfalls for PayPal to QuickBooks Online
Dates
- The date must be reordered. The bank file is written month first, then day, then year (M/D/YYYY, for example 3/4/2024). The QuickBooks Online file is written day first, then month, then year (DD/MM/YYYY, for example 04/03/2024). This is the mistake that does not show: 3/4/2024 is 4 Mar in the bank file, and read the other way round it is 3 Apr. Days from 13 to 31 fail loudly, days from 1 to 12 swap silently.
- QuickBooks Online on dates: one consistent format; the global edition of the page recommends dd/mm/yyyy, and its example rows use 1/1/2018. The converter writes dd/mm/yyyy as the fetched page recommends and offers mm/dd/yyyy as an option, because QuickBooks reads dates according to the company's region. The US edition of the page could not be fetched on the checked date.
Amounts and their direction
- Both sides use one signed amount column where money out is negative, so the sign is kept as it is.
- QuickBooks Online's own rule: 3-column layout: one signed Amount column, a payment is negative (the vendor's example payment is -100.00). 4-column layout: separate Credit and Debit columns.
- How sure the direction is: the source says it in words.
Shape of the file
- Quoting: every field in double quotes (header shown quoted in the source).
Other QuickBooks Online import rules
- Remove any zeroes (0) from the file and leave those cells blank.
- Remove the word 'amount' if it appears in the Credit or Debit column header.
- Remove the day of the week from dates (for example 20/11/2018 TUE).
- Correct any transactions that display numbers in the Description column.
- Mac users must save the file as a Windows CSV file.
- CSV files for credit card accounts may display transactions in reverse order.
Before and after: an invented example
Invented sample data. These four rows were made up for this page. They are not from a real PayPal export and hold no real account, name or balance.
The column headings are the header text the source prints. The 33 unused columns of the file are left out of the table.
| 1: Date | 4: Name | 5: Type | 7: Currency | 8: Gross | 13: Transaction ID | 16: Item Title | 30: Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/4/2024 | Coffee Corner | COFFEE CORNER MAIN ST | EUR | -4.50 | S0001 | Card purchase | 995.50 |
| 3/5/2024 | Example Co | PAYROLL EXAMPLE CO | EUR | 2500.00 | S0002 | Salary March | 3495.50 |
| 3/7/2024 | Sample Landlord | RENT MARCH | EUR | -1234.56 | S0003 | Standing order | 2260.94 |
| 3/11/2024 | Example Shop | REFUND EXAMPLE SHOP | EUR | 15.25 | S0004 | Refund | 2276.19 |
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 04/03/2024 | Coffee Corner - COFFEE CORNER MAIN ST - Card purchase | -4.50 |
| 05/03/2024 | Example Co - PAYROLL EXAMPLE CO - Salary March | 2500.00 |
| 07/03/2024 | Sample Landlord - RENT MARCH - Standing order | -1234.56 |
| 11/03/2024 | Example Shop - REFUND EXAMPLE SHOP - Refund | 15.25 |
Do it by hand in a spreadsheet, free
These steps need no tool from this site. The cell references follow the column positions of the profile above; if your spreadsheet uses semicolons between formula arguments, replace the commas.
- Open the PayPal CSV in a spreadsheet program through its import dialog. Set the date column (column 1 "Date") to Text so the program does not reinterpret it, and leave the amount columns as numbers.
- Row 1 is the header and the transactions start in row 2.
- Date: rewrite column A from M/D/YYYY to DD/MM/YYYY (3/4/2024 becomes 04/03/2024). This bank's dates do not have a fixed width, so a position formula is not reliable: split the column into its parts (Text to Columns, or the split function of your spreadsheet) and join them again in the new order.
- Amounts: column H is already signed the way QuickBooks Online wants (money out negative). Copy it as it is.
- Text columns: fill Description (from column 4 "Name", column 5 "Type" and column 16 "Item Title"). Where several bank columns feed one column, join them with a separator such as " - ".
- Apply QuickBooks Online's own rules from its help page: Remove any zeroes (0) from the file and leave those cells blank. Remove the word 'amount' if it appears in the Credit or Debit column header. Remove the day of the week from dates (for example 20/11/2018 TUE). Correct any transactions that display numbers in the Description column. Mac users must save the file as a Windows CSV file. CSV files for credit card accounts may display transactions in reverse order.
- Keep only the new columns, put the header row Date,Description,Amount on top, save the sheet as a comma-separated CSV, and compare the dates, the direction of the amounts and the number of rows with your statement in QuickBooks Online's import preview.
Or use the converter
Load the file, choose the PayPal profile in the bank list and the target QuickBooks Online, read the preview, then download. The conversion runs locally in your browser: the file is not uploaded, and only the licence key is sent for unlocking.
Paid pack. The PayPal profile is one of the 35 profiles unlocked by a licence (9 US dollars, paid once; see the terms). Without a licence you can still convert this file with the free manual column mapper, using the column table on this page, within the free limit of 25 rows per file.
Where this layout comes from
No bank supplied or approved this layout. It was copied on 5 October 2026 from a public open-source importer file kept by volunteers: simonmichael/hledger, file examples/csv/other/paypal-custom.csv.rules
Also read: simonmichael/hledger, file examples/csv/other/paypal-2023.rules
The lines used from the source: "Export CSV from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download" ; "The default fields in 2018 were: ..." ; date-format %-m/%-d/%Y ; "(negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields)"
The QuickBooks Online rules come from the vendor's own help pages: quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-global/help-article/bank-transactions/format-csv-files-excel-bank-transactions-quickbooks/L4BjLWckq_ROW_en (named as text, not linked). The official page was fetched and read on the checked date.
Bank formats change. Banks alter their CSV exports without notice and vendors change their import rules, so this mapping can be out of date. If the preview looks wrong, use the manual column mapper.