Before importing a CSV into accounting software
- Keep one header row and remove totals and notes at the bottom.
- Use one date format for the whole column.
- For bank transactions going into QuickBooks, the Excel to QBO converter skips the CSV step and avoids the column mapping screen.
Doing it in Excel, and its limits
Excel can save a CSV with File > Save As > CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), but only the active sheet is saved, the separator follows your computer's regional settings, and Excel warns about losing features each time. Converting here lets you export every sheet at once, choose comma, semicolon or tab explicitly, and decide whether the file starts with a byte-order mark.
Which settings the usual destinations expect
- QuickBooks Online bank upload: comma separated, UTF-8, one header row, and a date, description and amount (or debit and credit) columns.
- Xero bank statement import: comma separated, with dates in a single consistent format.
- Payroll, CRM and e-commerce imports: usually comma and UTF-8; if accented names come out garbled, try the version without BOM.
- European systems: semicolon, because the comma is their decimal separator.
Hidden rows, filters and merged cells
A CSV has no notion of hidden or filtered rows: every row of the sheet is exported. Delete rows you don't want before converting. Merged cells are exported as a value in the first cell and empty cells after it, so unmerge headers that span several columns to keep one name per column.