Pre-import sanity check for RS → QuickBooks (my quick list)

Posting this while waiting on a client to find “page 3 of 6” they swear they sent. Anyway. Here’s the short checklist I run before I push Rocket Statements exports into QuickBooks. Nothing fancy. Just the stuff I keep tripping on.

My quick pass:

• Make sure the PDF end balance = the CSV/XLSX end balance. Sounds obvious. I still skip it when rushed and then redo the import.
• Count lines. If the statement says 42 transactions and I’ve got 41, I’m missing a void/interest/fee line somewhere.
• Date format. If the bank is D/M/Y and QBO thinks it’s M/D/Y… chaos. I normalize in Sheets first if needed (the RS Google Sheets addon makes it quick to filter/fix dates).
• Check signs. Some banks flip DR/CR. I scan for refunds/fees to make sure negatives stayed negative after conversion.
• Opening balance ties to prior month export. If it doesn’t, I probably grabbed the wrong file or the client sent a partial.
• Duplicates: if I already synced live bank feed for that period, I tag the RS export with “PDF-only” in the file name and only import the gap dates. Or just don’t import and use it as a tie-out. Depends.
• Memos. For same-amount same-day transfers, I add a tiny memo so QBO rules don’t merge the wrong ones.
• Weird pages. If the PDF has watermark/page headers, I “print to PDF” to flatten first. RS seems to parse cleaner when the source isn’t doing funky overlays. Could be me.

Naming that’s working (for now): YYYY-MM-EndDate_Last4_RS.csv Example: 2024-09-30_1224_RS.csv. Easy to search in Rocket Statements later. I also use search on the last 4 to pull a quick history when a client pings me mid-call.

Export flow:

• Convert in Rocket Statements to the QuickBooks-compatible file when I can. If I need to tweak, I’ll do CSV, fix in Sheets, then import.
• If there’s a pile for an audit, the bulk download in RS is faster than chasing one-offs. Then I share from RS rather than emailing attachments. Less "who has the latest" back-and-forth.

Minor win: once I started doing the balance + line count first, the rest is pretty smooth. Not perfect, but I’m not re-importing as much.

Curious if there’s a faster way in Rocket Statements to compare opening/closing balances without eyeballing. Or a trick you use to avoid DD/MM vs MM/DD whiplash when clients bounce between banks. Probably user error but I’ll take any tips.