@ConnorM said:
Hey @JCD! Thanks for reaching out here, and I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you're seeing with this. For the values in the credit column, are they entirely blank? You'll want to fill that column with 0s in order for the system to recognize your CSV correctly here.
Thanks for your reply.
In my experience that’s a bug - if the options offer to select column then it should regardless of what is in a column or not, (The column was recognised) the user should not have edit a CSV to put in values for it to work, because that can introduce many more errors and is not best practice.
In my case (from OCBC bank) it reads the file allright. Anyhow it always suggests wrong column as balance and I can not change that. I can select all the other column on import, but not balance. Can you change that so we would be able to manually select every column instead of letting the import make the wrong guess.
The date formatting is all of a sudden giving me problems in uploading CSV files. I have tried all the date formats which I have noticed options have been reduced. It just does not work.
Hey @Baristas2019 and @Kem_Dee! I'm sorry to hear about the issues you're both seeing regarding uploading these CSV files. Could you both post screenshots here of the errors/issues that you're seeing in order for us to have a little further context around the challenges that we're facing here? I'd love to help as best as possible, and would love a little more context to find some solutions for you both.
Hi, I'm trying to upload paypal CSV as the integration is only showing 1 transaction. however when using the NET figure its not going to work as i need the Gross figure to work out my Flat Rate VAT - anyway to show the gross and paypal fee deducted?
thanks
Unfortunately there is no way to do this on the upload of your PayPal CSV. Our CSV uploader really only looks at 3 or 4 major columns, Date, Description, Debits and Credits. These fee transactions would need to be done manually using our Split Transaction feature.
I have the same problem, I have now downloaded the CSV template and used that and still I get the error. This is very frustrating. Does this actually work, or will it be better to look for a new accounting package
Hello, in wave the csv import is not working at all. In other applications, like pandle, etc. it is working perfectly without any issue.
The only way to import a csv file is to prepare or download your data under an xlsx file and to convert it to csv. It should work. However, under microsoft excel it seems not to working properly. The error will occur continuously.
It is recommended to download Open Office. Open the excel sheet under open office and save it as csv unicode 8.
This is the only way I found which work properly in wave. Let me know.
@WillemM said:
I have the same problem, I have now downloaded the CSV template and used that and still I get the error. This is very frustrating. Does this actually work, or will it be better to look for a new accounting package
Hello, in wave the csv import is not working at all. In other applications, like pandle, etc. it is working perfectly without any issue.
The only way to import a csv file is to prepare or download your data under an xlsx file and to convert it to csv. It should work. However, under microsoft excel it seems not to working properly. The error will occur continuously.
It is recommended to download Open Office. Open the excel sheet under open office and save it as csv unicode 8.
This is the only way I found which work properly in wave. Let me know.
Hi there. I am having to consider moving onto another solution to Wave as the CSV upload feature simply is not working - I have noe spent hours formatting dates as they are required and the uoload feature just wont read them..It is beyond frustrating, Wave used to sync with my banl accounts and that was fine but I canot spend HOURS like this trying to upload bank statements. Help! What is the solution?
I have a case logged but have just been redirected to this article, which I obviously read and went through before logging the fault.
The CSV upload feature works intermittently, but regularly states Wave is having difficulty reading the dates of your transactions. This even occurs on files that have previously uploaded fine, and on files that can be uploaded again a day or two in the future. I have tried all of the suggested methods, both in this article and the product itself (these suggestions differ) but all of them suffer the same intermittent issue.
Obviously without a useful upload feature (uploading in other formats is worse than useless as it just duplicates transactions all over the place) I will also have to find an alternative product, as annoying as that will be I am unable to spend the time required to continue this way. @Wave, have you managed to find the fault causing this issue and is it going to be fixed very soon? @others, looking for suggestions of a similar online accounting system that already works, are there any suggestions.
Hello everyone! Thanks for reaching out here and offering your context, feedback, and potential workarounds. I'm very interested to hear exactly how this isn't working for you all. Are you seeing error messages when it comes to uploading these bank statements? Are these transactions simply loading without end? If you've been receiving the date formatting error, have you tried using the template located at the bottom of this Help Center article as a basis for formatting the transactions, or tried a different date format to the one you're used to?
Any and all context is welcome and appreciated in order for us to work through this together. I'm with you here, let's figure this out! Screenshots are also killer, but make sure to censor any sensitive information if you'll be sending those in here.
Hi Connor
It is my first month using Wave but I am having problems importing the bank and have tried everything on the help sheet including using the template but nothing is working.
I managed to import my first one after a bit of problem with the date format but now it is giving me the below error.
Statement The CSV file must contain an amount, date and description column. Learn more.
Hey all,
Potential Fix- I kept getting error messages after following the guide and using the template. After beating my head against the wall for hours I was finally able to get ti work. What I found out was that while saving (using Excel or Openoffice) the file as a csv (comma separated value) if you open the actual data it was using semicolons to separate out the data. In Openoffice I changed the settings while saving the file. The steps were:
-Save As
-Tick the box that says "Edit Filter Settings"
-Dialogue box pops up click "Keep Current Format"
-Field Delimiter needs to be set to ,
Its a drop down menu that list different delimiter options
I don't know if excel has these options but I assume they do somewhere.
Edit
Additional hang up I found, where the currency symbol is located in the amount field can cause a problem as well. Below are a credit and a debit example. Open up your csv file in notepad and see if this what things look like. If the $ appears outside the parenthesis ie $(880,00) it wont work either and will spit the file back out.
Quotes around the Description are needed if there is a comma in the description. Quotes are needed around the amount as there is a comma in that field. Open office seems to add these quotes as needed.
I've just uploaded 3 months of bank transactions and all the checks were correct and everything in the correct columns before finalising the upload - then as soon as I uploaded the bank account number has taken over the amount column! Now it seems I have an obscene amount of money - if only that were true!
I've managed to delete them by filtering all uncategorized transactions. Then and I deleted the bank account column from my csv file and uploaded it again, being sure to check all columns were right in the upload checks - and now all my transactions have been entered as the right amount - but ALL CREDITS!!! I can't change it to an expense - only allows me to categorise as income!
What is going on with this feature? I do this quarterly so obviously has been some gremlins in the system since then? I've also been having trouble with my receipts app which I use to take photos of all my receipts. If I update any of the receipts on the website the app doesn't update that it has been done. So I go and update the same details in the app and it comes up with an error saying it can't be processed at this time and then disappears as if it has been processed! I'm hoping I don't find issues with that as I go through comparing with the bank statements. God I wish I didn't do things at the last minutes sometimes!
My apologies you're experiencing this issue with your uploads. It might be helpful if we could potentially get a screenshot of what your CSV transactions document looks like that might help. Are you uploading your dates in MMDDYYYY? Any additional info might help! Thanks so much.
THANK YOU so much for this incredible work you put into helping our folks out. Hoping this comment gets upvoted and helps users figure out their uploading issues!
This is a shame that you've tried uploading your statement multiple times and your debits and credits are reversed Do you use two columns for income and expenses? Or are you using one column for "Amount" and using a negative symbol ( - ) for your expenses? Try a bit of reformatting on your CSV to see if this works out. Also Curious is Chris' suggestions might help you as well.
@BarsinA Thank you for your response. My CSV file has the following columns: -Bank account (which i deleted 2nd attempt) - Date - Narrative - Debit amount - Credit amount - Balance - Categories - Serial Numbers are all in the positive format. When I deleted the bank account column the prices uploaded correctly, however all the uploaded transactions were incorrectly labelled as Deposit for withdrawals and Withdrawal for deposits. I checked that all this information was correct in the steps of uploading but it still mixed them up. I'm almost finished going through all the data now and I'm having to change the Deposit or Withdrawal field (which I didn't realise I could do at first). But there must be a bug in the upload phase to mix them up between the checking steps and final upload.
It's tricky because it does depend on the file formatting sometimes. Each bank formats their CSV export differently. Sometimes I've even seen a square or cell that is "right side oriented" this can throw things off. Because the uploader does have to be adaptable to many different file formats. Perhaps you can try what Clairanne did and use a different format? Or you can try reformatting it to our uploader's preferred format.
Every time I try to upload my CSV file (Paypal), I get the error that my date formats are wrong. I understand how I have to format them, and I have difficulty making the changes with Excel every time. I've had to look up videos on YouTube to help me, and even the videos I find, don't always help me. It would be helpful if Wave Accounting would make a video that pertains to this, as this is a huge problem for many users of Wave. I found one video on YouTube that speaks about the differences between the USA format ant UK format, as an example. I'm thinking that that might be part of the problem, as the formatting recognized may be different depending on which country we reside in when using Excel....
And I agree with other people's posts about how long it takes to upload/import our CSV files to Wave due to the Date formatting problems. I have this problem EVERY time I use Wave, and it wastes a lot of my time. Please do something about this! It should recognize many more date formats. The small number of date formats that it recognizes is silly.
I have downloaded the template and read all the above.
Saved file in CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), 3 columns with Date-Description-Amount header, correct date format (October 8, 2020) Description per bank and amount in single column with no currencies.
I keep getting an error:
"Oops! Something isn't right.
Please correct what's highlighted below.
The CSV file must contain an amount, date and description column. Learn more."
Please correct your Troubleshooting Tip and the error message to list the columns in the proper order: Date, Description, Amount
Your advice column reads: date debit and credit amounts (either in one column or 2 separate columns) descriptions columns
The error message reads: The CSV file must contain an amount, date and description column. Learn more.
List the CSV format at the top of the article.
State that the date must be in YYYY-MM-DD format.
Hey there @MelonB88 ! Does your CSV file use the correct formate (Date,Description,Amount)? If so, and you are still experiencing issues, I suggest breaking up and uploading your CSV file in sections. This may help you identify the issue linked to your CSV file. Sometimes a single row can be the cause of the problem. You can also try some browser troubleshooting steps.
Comments
Thanks for your reply.
In my experience that’s a bug - if the options offer to select column then it should regardless of what is in a column or not, (The column was recognised) the user should not have edit a CSV to put in values for it to work, because that can introduce many more errors and is not best practice.
In my case (from OCBC bank) it reads the file allright. Anyhow it always suggests wrong column as balance and I can not change that. I can select all the other column on import, but not balance. Can you change that so we would be able to manually select every column instead of letting the import make the wrong guess.
The date formatting is all of a sudden giving me problems in uploading CSV files. I have tried all the date formats which I have noticed options have been reduced. It just does not work.
The system has selected the account number column and will not allow me to change it to the correct credit column. Help
Hey @Baristas2019 and @Kem_Dee! I'm sorry to hear about the issues you're both seeing regarding uploading these CSV files. Could you both post screenshots here of the errors/issues that you're seeing in order for us to have a little further context around the challenges that we're facing here? I'd love to help as best as possible, and would love a little more context to find some solutions for you both.
Hi, I'm trying to upload paypal CSV as the integration is only showing 1 transaction. however when using the NET figure its not going to work as i need the Gross figure to work out my Flat Rate VAT - anyway to show the gross and paypal fee deducted?
thanks
Hey there @vinnyware
Unfortunately there is no way to do this on the upload of your PayPal CSV. Our CSV uploader really only looks at 3 or 4 major columns, Date, Description, Debits and Credits. These fee transactions would need to be done manually using our Split Transaction feature.
I haven't seen a more frustrating implementation for importing a CSV. No matter how the date is formatted it just reads whatever it wants.
I have the same problem, I have now downloaded the CSV template and used that and still I get the error. This is very frustrating. Does this actually work, or will it be better to look for a new accounting package
Hello, in wave the csv import is not working at all. In other applications, like pandle, etc. it is working perfectly without any issue.
The only way to import a csv file is to prepare or download your data under an xlsx file and to convert it to csv. It should work. However, under microsoft excel it seems not to working properly. The error will occur continuously.
It is recommended to download Open Office. Open the excel sheet under open office and save it as csv unicode 8.
This is the only way I found which work properly in wave. Let me know.
Hello, in wave the csv import is not working at all. In other applications, like pandle, etc. it is working perfectly without any issue.
The only way to import a csv file is to prepare or download your data under an xlsx file and to convert it to csv. It should work. However, under microsoft excel it seems not to working properly. The error will occur continuously.
It is recommended to download Open Office. Open the excel sheet under open office and save it as csv unicode 8.
This is the only way I found which work properly in wave. Let me know.
Hi there. I am having to consider moving onto another solution to Wave as the CSV upload feature simply is not working - I have noe spent hours formatting dates as they are required and the uoload feature just wont read them..It is beyond frustrating, Wave used to sync with my banl accounts and that was fine but I canot spend HOURS like this trying to upload bank statements. Help! What is the solution?
Hi there,
I have a case logged but have just been redirected to this article, which I obviously read and went through before logging the fault.
The CSV upload feature works intermittently, but regularly states Wave is having difficulty reading the dates of your transactions. This even occurs on files that have previously uploaded fine, and on files that can be uploaded again a day or two in the future. I have tried all of the suggested methods, both in this article and the product itself (these suggestions differ) but all of them suffer the same intermittent issue.
Obviously without a useful upload feature (uploading in other formats is worse than useless as it just duplicates transactions all over the place) I will also have to find an alternative product, as annoying as that will be I am unable to spend the time required to continue this way.
@Wave, have you managed to find the fault causing this issue and is it going to be fixed very soon?
@others, looking for suggestions of a similar online accounting system that already works, are there any suggestions.
Hello everyone! Thanks for reaching out here and offering your context, feedback, and potential workarounds. I'm very interested to hear exactly how this isn't working for you all. Are you seeing error messages when it comes to uploading these bank statements? Are these transactions simply loading without end? If you've been receiving the date formatting error, have you tried using the template located at the bottom of this Help Center article as a basis for formatting the transactions, or tried a different date format to the one you're used to?
Any and all context is welcome and appreciated in order for us to work through this together. I'm with you here, let's figure this out! Screenshots are also killer, but make sure to censor any sensitive information if you'll be sending those in here.
Hi Connor
It is my first month using Wave but I am having problems importing the bank and have tried everything on the help sheet including using the template but nothing is working.
I managed to import my first one after a bit of problem with the date format but now it is giving me the below error.
Statement The CSV file must contain an amount, date and description column. Learn more.
Payment account
Thanks
Clairanne
Hey all,
Potential Fix- I kept getting error messages after following the guide and using the template. After beating my head against the wall for hours I was finally able to get ti work. What I found out was that while saving (using Excel or Openoffice) the file as a csv (comma separated value) if you open the actual data it was using semicolons to separate out the data. In Openoffice I changed the settings while saving the file. The steps were:
-Save As
-Tick the box that says "Edit Filter Settings"
-Dialogue box pops up click "Keep Current Format"
-Field Delimiter needs to be set to ,
Its a drop down menu that list different delimiter options
I don't know if excel has these options but I assume they do somewhere.
Edit
Additional hang up I found, where the currency symbol is located in the amount field can cause a problem as well. Below are a credit and a debit example. Open up your csv file in notepad and see if this what things look like. If the $ appears outside the parenthesis ie $(880,00) it wont work either and will spit the file back out.
Quotes around the Description are needed if there is a comma in the description. Quotes are needed around the amount as there is a comma in that field. Open office seems to add these quotes as needed.
7/29/2020," ACH DEPOSIT, WAVE","$13.493,09 "
7/8/2020, Check 221 ,"($880,00)"
Hope this helps,
I've just uploaded 3 months of bank transactions and all the checks were correct and everything in the correct columns before finalising the upload - then as soon as I uploaded the bank account number has taken over the amount column! Now it seems I have an obscene amount of money - if only that were true!
I've managed to delete them by filtering all uncategorized transactions. Then and I deleted the bank account column from my csv file and uploaded it again, being sure to check all columns were right in the upload checks - and now all my transactions have been entered as the right amount - but ALL CREDITS!!! I can't change it to an expense - only allows me to categorise as income!
What is going on with this feature? I do this quarterly so obviously has been some gremlins in the system since then? I've also been having trouble with my receipts app which I use to take photos of all my receipts. If I update any of the receipts on the website the app doesn't update that it has been done. So I go and update the same details in the app and it comes up with an error saying it can't be processed at this time and then disappears as if it has been processed! I'm hoping I don't find issues with that as I go through comparing with the bank statements. God I wish I didn't do things at the last minutes sometimes!
Hey there @Clairanne
My apologies you're experiencing this issue with your uploads. It might be helpful if we could potentially get a screenshot of what your CSV transactions document looks like that might help. Are you uploading your dates in MMDDYYYY? Any additional info might help! Thanks so much.
Hey @ChrisK
THANK YOU so much for this incredible work you put into helping our folks out. Hoping this comment gets upvoted and helps users figure out their uploading issues!
Hi @KJ80
This is a shame that you've tried uploading your statement multiple times and your debits and credits are reversed
Do you use two columns for income and expenses? Or are you using one column for "Amount" and using a negative symbol ( - ) for your expenses? Try a bit of reformatting on your CSV to see if this works out. Also Curious is Chris' suggestions might help you as well.
Hi Barsin
No worries I find it works fine if I bring it in OFX format - I found that suggestion in your help area.
Clairanne
-Bank account (which i deleted 2nd attempt)
- Date
- Narrative
- Debit amount
- Credit amount
- Balance
- Categories
- Serial
Numbers are all in the positive format.
When I deleted the bank account column the prices uploaded correctly, however all the uploaded transactions were incorrectly labelled as Deposit for withdrawals and Withdrawal for deposits. I checked that all this information was correct in the steps of uploading but it still mixed them up.
I'm almost finished going through all the data now and I'm having to change the Deposit or Withdrawal field (which I didn't realise I could do at first). But there must be a bug in the upload phase to mix them up between the checking steps and final upload.
Hey there @KJ80
It's tricky because it does depend on the file formatting sometimes. Each bank formats their CSV export differently. Sometimes I've even seen a square or cell that is "right side oriented" this can throw things off. Because the uploader does have to be adaptable to many different file formats. Perhaps you can try what Clairanne did and use a different format? Or you can try reformatting it to our uploader's preferred format.
You seriously can't read dates in the format "06/19/2020 20:27:53"?? 🙄
Every time I try to upload my CSV file (Paypal), I get the error that my date formats are wrong. I understand how I have to format them, and I have difficulty making the changes with Excel every time. I've had to look up videos on YouTube to help me, and even the videos I find, don't always help me. It would be helpful if Wave Accounting would make a video that pertains to this, as this is a huge problem for many users of Wave. I found one video on YouTube that speaks about the differences between the USA format ant UK format, as an example. I'm thinking that that might be part of the problem, as the formatting recognized may be different depending on which country we reside in when using Excel....
And I agree with other people's posts about how long it takes to upload/import our CSV files to Wave due to the Date formatting problems. I have this problem EVERY time I use Wave, and it wastes a lot of my time. Please do something about this! It should recognize many more date formats. The small number of date formats that it recognizes is silly.
I have downloaded the template and read all the above.
Saved file in CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), 3 columns with Date-Description-Amount header, correct date format (October 8, 2020) Description per bank and amount in single column with no currencies.
I keep getting an error:
"Oops! Something isn't right.
Please correct what's highlighted below.
The CSV file must contain an amount, date and description column. Learn more."
Why is it not working?
I have downloaded the Google Sheets Addon. That worked.
Please correct your Troubleshooting Tip and the error message to list the columns in the proper order: Date, Description, Amount
Thanks, Jon
This format worked finally, Yay!. Use a comma separator. Saved file in CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), 3 columns with Date,Description,Amount header:
Date,Description,Amount
08/17/2020,Deposit Lance,950
08/24/2020,Magtape Deposit,270
08/31/2020,Monthly Account Fee,-80
Seems the uploader is faulty? I get an error when trying the csv or the ofx - and the "help prompt" links me to the opposite advice
i.e. try uploading csv, fails, help prompt send me ofx advice and vice versa
Help please!
Hey there @MelonB88 ! Does your CSV file use the correct formate (Date,Description,Amount)? If so, and you are still experiencing issues, I suggest breaking up and uploading your CSV file in sections. This may help you identify the issue linked to your CSV file. Sometimes a single row can be the cause of the problem. You can also try some browser troubleshooting steps.