A simple, line-based format
Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) represents transactions as short, line-based records. Each line starts with a single letter identifying the field — D for date, T for amount, P for payee, M for memo, N for a check number or reference, L for category — and a caret (^) marks the end of each record. There's no XML, no numbered tag system, just short lines stacked one after another.
That simplicity made QIF easy for many programs to both read and write, which is part of why it's still around: it's a common export option for smaller or older banking systems even though newer formats have added structure QIF doesn't have.
What it typically includes
A QIF file usually covers bank, cash and credit-card transactions, with dates, amounts, payees, memos, reference numbers and categories where available. Split transactions — one entry divided across several categories — are also part of the format, though they're represented as sub-lines attached to a single parent transaction rather than as separate rows.
Two limitations worth knowing about
QIF has no field for currency. The format was built at a time and for a use case where that wasn't necessary, so a converted QIF file will have empty currency values unless you know the currency from context and add it yourself.
Dates can also be genuinely ambiguous. A date like 01/02/2026 could mean January 2 or February 1, depending on whether the file uses day-first or month-first order, and QIF doesn't declare which. A good converter should ask rather than guess when the file's own dates don't resolve the ambiguity — for example, when every date in the file could be read either way.
Converting to CSV or Excel
Because QIF's fields are short and line-based, converting it to CSV or Excel is mostly a matter of turning each caret-terminated record into a row, with each lettered field mapped to its own column. That makes the same transactions much easier to sort, filter or search than reading raw D/T/P/M lines.
Bankfile's QIF converters run locally in your browser, ask for the date order when needed, and leave currency cells empty rather than guessing — the output reflects exactly what the file contains.