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Credit Card Import

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Jordan Bogart

Shepherd's Staff can import transactions made on your credit card from your financial institution using what's known as an Open Financial Exchange (OFX) file. Many financial institutions, like Banks and Credit Card providers will allow you to download your transactions into an OFX file; check with your bank or credit card provider to see if they offer this option.

Note: Quicken offers a QFX format file. This file format can also be used for this import.

It is not recommended to use the Credit Card Import function if you have:

  1. Recurrent transactions set up using the same credit card account you are importing from
  2. Contribution Funds tied to the same credit card account you are importing from
  3. Manually entered Payments, Receipts or Journal Entries using the same credit card account you are importing from.

The reason we advise against using the Credit Card import in these cases is that it can lead to duplicated transactions.

To get to the Credit Card Import view, open the Finance module and go to the Activity tab, and click on "Credit card import"

CCImport1.png
  1. Select which book and Credit Card Accounts you want to use in the "Book" and "Credit card account" fields respectively. After you select which credit card account you want to use, a "Skip bank drafts" box will appear. Check this box if you do not want to include any transactions where you are paying the credit card bill from a bank account. One reason you may do this is if your church writes a check to pay the credit card bill, this will let you record the payment accurately.
  2. The "Mark transactions as:" field will determine if transactions will be in Paid or Pending status when imported.
  3. Click the browse button to start searching for the OFX file on your computer that you want to use to import your transactions. A file explorer window will appear, navigate to where your file is stored, and double-click on it.

  4. Click the "Import Credit Card File" button. This will bring your file into Shepherd's Staff. If successful, you will see the following:
     

    CCImport2.png

  5. Next, click the "Account Xref Setup" button. This will allow you to connect specific transactions to matching accounts in Shepherd's Staff. Shepherd's Staff will let you know the number of Account Xref records it has created.

    CCImport3.png
  6. In the window that appears, you will see two columns, "Transaction Item" and "Matching Account in Shepherd's Staff".  Either Double Click, or click and then click "Edit' at the bottom of the grid on the line you want to work on first. Clicking on a line and then clicking "Delete" will ask if you want to delete the row you selected.
  7. The window that appears shows a list of all transactions for the Vendor referenced in the Transaction Item column. The "Filter Account type" box determines what type(s) of accounts can be selected in the "Select Account" box. The "Select Account" box is where you pick which account you should use for the transactions from this vendor. This is looking for the offset account that should be used, each transaction will be charged against the Credit Card account you picked back in step 1. There is also a filter at the bottom of the window "Show only matching transactions" will show only transactions that belong to this vendor, "Show all transactions" will show all transactions across all vendors, but the transactions for this vendor will be highlighted in yellow. Click "Save" when you have made your selection for the account in the "Select Account" field. 
    CCImport4.png
  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until each row has an account filled out in the "Matching Account in Shepherd's Staff" field and then click the "Close" option at the bottom of the grid.
  9. Click the "Vendor Xref Setup" button to open the Vendor Xref Window. Shepherd's Staff will tell you the number of Vendors you brought in with this import.
    CCImport5.png
  10. In the window that appears, you will see two columns, "Vendor From Import File" and "Matching Vendor in Shepherd's Staff".  Either Double Click, or click and then click "Edit' at the bottom of the grid on the line you want to work on first. Clicking on a line and then clicking "Delete" will ask if you want to delete the row you selected.
  11. The window that appears shows a list of all transactions for the Vendor referenced in the Vendor From Import File column. The "Select Vendor" box is where you pick which vendor you should use for the transactions shown. There is a green + button above this box you can click to add a new vendor if needed.  There is also a filter at the bottom of the window "Show only matching transactions" will show only transactions that belong to this vendor, "Show all transactions" will show all transactions across all vendors, but the transactions for this vendor will be highlighted in yellow. Click "Save" when you have made your selection for the account in the "Select Vendor" field. 
  12. Repeat steps 10 and 11 until each row has a vendor filled in for the "Matching Vendor in Shepherd's Staff" column and then click the "Close" button at the bottom of the grid.
  13. Click the "Create Payments, Receipts and Journal Entries" button. This will start creating the transactions and when finished, you will see the number of transactions imported in the "Import" box, the number of transactions skipped in the "Skipped" box (if any), and processed in the "Processed" box
    CCImport6.png
  14. You can then view your Payment, Receipts and Journal Entries views to see the transactions created.

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