To change the bank feed start date in QuickBooks Online, you disconnect the account and connect it again, choosing the new date during the reconnection. QuickBooks asks for the start date only while a connection is being set up, so there is no field to edit afterwards. Clear pending lines first, because disconnecting removes them.
Is there a setting to change the bank feed start date?
No ordinary setting changes the bank feed start date once a feed is running. QuickBooks Online asks for that date at one moment only: on the connection screen, after you sign in to the bank and tick the accounts. The connected account's own menu lets you edit its details or disconnect it, but not pick a new date.
Where the date is chosen
Intuit's guide to connecting bank and credit card accounts describes a date range dropdown on that screen, with a Custom choice for any date you like. The same guide notes that download timespans vary by bank, from 90 days up to 24 months. The date you choose there is the oldest day the feed asks for. The bank decides how much of that request it can meet.
Why people want to change it
Three situations come up again and again:
- The feed was set to the beginning of the year by default, and the owner had already entered those months by hand.
- The feed started too late, so a few weeks before the start date never arrived.
- An accountant has closed the books through a certain month and wants the feed to begin the day after.
Each of these has a different best fix. Only some of them need the disconnect and reconnect route.
What happens to downloaded lines when you reset the bank feed start date?
Resetting the start date leaves every transaction you already added or matched in place. Those entries live in the register, not in the feed. What disappears is anything still waiting in the Pending tab, which QuickBooks removes when the account is disconnected.
What the disconnect guide says
Intuit's guide to disconnecting accounts connected to online banking states that QuickBooks removes any transactions still in the Pending tab when you disconnect. It also says disconnecting does not make the account inactive, and that you can reconnect it later. Two more warnings matter here: fix any connection error before you disconnect, and expect that transactions older than 90 days may not download again on reconnecting.
A quick inventory before you start
Before disconnecting, write down:
- The date of the newest transaction in the account's register.
- How many lines are waiting in Pending, and their date range.
- Whether the account shows a connection error.
- The last month you reconciled.
That list takes two minutes and answers every question the later steps raise.
Resetting the bank feed start date by disconnecting and reconnecting
Resetting the start date takes two passes through the bank connection screens: one to disconnect, one to connect again with the date you want. The account in your chart of accounts stays the same throughout. The important choice on the second pass is to link the feed back to that existing account rather than create a new one.
The steps
- Add or match every line in the Pending tab, so nothing is lost on disconnect.
- If the account shows an error, fix it at the bank first.
- In Bank transactions, open the account tile's edit menu and choose Disconnect account. If the option is missing, wait for any download in progress to finish.
- Choose to connect or link an account, and search for the same bank.
- Sign in and pass the bank's security checks.
- Tick the account and link it to the existing QuickBooks account with the same name.
- Open the date range dropdown, choose Custom and enter the new start date.
- Connect, then open For review and check the oldest line that arrived.
A worked example
The figures here are examples. A design studio uploaded its checking statements through May 15, then connected the feed on June 10 with a start date of June 1. The days from May 16 to May 31 never arrived, and the register balance no longer agrees with the bank.
Pending holds eight lines from June 1 to June 9. The owner adds those eight lines, confirms there is no error, disconnects, and reconnects with a custom start date of May 16. May 16 is well inside the 90-day window, so the bank sends the missing fortnight. The June lines arrive again as well; the owner excludes those copies, because they are already in the register.
Picking the new feed start date from the account register
The right new start date is the day after the newest transaction already in the register for that account. That rule works whether the earlier lines came from the feed, from a file upload or from manual entry, because the register is the one place that shows everything QuickBooks already holds.
Reading the register correctly
Sort the register by date and look at the newest line, not the newest one you entered. A cleared check from last week can sit below a deposit you typed in today. Also check that the newest line belongs to this account and is not a transfer recorded from the other side. A transfer you entered from savings still appears in the checking register, and it counts.
Intuit's page on fixing duplicate transactions in bank feeds puts the same idea in its own words for file imports: start after the newest transaction already in QuickBooks. A feed is no different.
Card and payment accounts
The rule is the same for a credit card account, though card statements close on odd days, so the newest line is rarely the end of a month. Connecting a credit card to QuickBooks Online covers the card-specific parts of the connection. A PayPal balance behaves like another account with its own start date, described in connecting PayPal to QuickBooks Online as a bank feed.
A feed start date earlier than the bank's download window
A start date earlier than your bank can supply does not fail. The feed quietly brings back only what the bank sends, which may be as little as 90 days. The months before that never arrive, and nothing on screen says they are missing. You find out when the register balance disagrees with an old statement.
Filling the older months
The months before the bank's window come from statements or downloaded files, uploaded to the same account. Upload them oldest first, stop the day before the oldest line the feed delivered, and reconcile each month as you go. Importing older bank transactions into QuickBooks Online sets out that route month by month, including the opening balance question.
If those older statements exist only as PDFs, they need converting to CSV or QBO before QuickBooks will take them. SimpleBankConvert is being built to do that conversion for QuickBooks and Xero uploads.
Moving the feed start date later by excluding lines instead
When a feed has already reached back too far, you often do not need to reconnect at all. The extra lines sit in For review until you act on them. Excluding the ones you already have gives the same result as a later start date, with no disconnect, no lost pending lines and no fresh sign-in to the bank.
How to do it cleanly
Filter For review to the date range you already have in the register. Tick those lines and choose Exclude. Intuit's duplicate guide notes that once a downloaded line is added or excluded, the bank stops downloading it again, so the problem does not return on the next nightly update.
Check the boundary day carefully. If the register's newest line is April 12, a feed line on April 12 might be the same transaction or a second purchase on the same day. Compare the amount and description before excluding it.
When excluding is the better choice
- The extra range is a few weeks or a few months, not years.
- Nothing in the extra range has been added by mistake yet.
- The feed is otherwise healthy, with no error on the account.
When not to change the bank feed start date
Leave the start date alone when the account has a connection error you have not fixed, when lines in Pending have not been reviewed, or when the real problem is a gap older than the bank's download window. In each case, a disconnect and reconnect either loses work or does nothing to fill the missing days.
Situations where a reset backfires
- An unfixed error. Disconnecting while the account shows an error can bring duplicate downloads on reconnecting, as the disconnect guide warns. Fix the error first.
- Unreviewed Pending lines. They are removed on disconnect. If they cover dates the new start date skips, they are gone from the feed for good.
- A gap older than 90 days. A reconnect cannot reach it with most banks. A file upload can.
- A reconciled period. Changing the date so that reconciled months download again invites duplicates in a period you already signed off.
If the books are in Xero
Xero has its own bank feed screens, so the QuickBooks steps above do not carry over. Fixing a Xero bank feed that is not working covers that side.