Importing transactions

Bring your history into Doric from a file your bank exports. Point Doric at the file, tell it which columns are the date, amount, and description, and every row lands in a Review queue where you approve them before they hit your books.

Getting there

Click the Import icon in the left sidebar. The Import page has three tabs across the top — Transactions, Accounts, and Payees. Most of the time you want the Transactions tab.

Supported files

Doric reads the formats banks and other tools commonly export:

CSV (and plain .txt) — a spreadsheet of rows and columns. The most common export, and the one you'll do the most setup for, because every bank labels its columns differently.
OFX / QFX — a structured banking format. Doric reads the fields directly, so there are no columns to map.
QIF — the older Quicken format, also structured.

Importing a transaction file

On the Transactions tab, work top to bottom:

1. Pick the staging account

The Staging Account is the bank or credit-card account these transactions belong to — the account they'll post into. Start typing to search your accounts and pick one.

2. Choose the file

Click Choose File and select your export. Until you do, it reads No file chosen. Doric decides how to handle it from the file's extension.

3a. Map the columns (CSV)

For a CSV, Doric shows a CSV Preview of your file and tries to auto-detect the columns from their headers. Anything it isn't sure about, you set yourself: Click any column header to assign it as date, amount, credit, or description. Doric needs, at minimum, a date, an amount, and a description.

A few settings sit above the preview:

Date Format — how dates are written in your file (MM/DD/YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD (ISO), and so on). Doric guesses this from the data where it can.
Header rows — how many rows at the top to skip (usually 1, the header; 0 if your file has none).
Negate amounts — check this if money spent shows as a positive number in your file. Doric stores money out as negative, so this flips the sign for banks that export it the other way.

Tip: banks are consistent about their own format, so once you've mapped one export you can save it as a Bank Profile (give it a name like Chase Checking and click Save Profile). Doric also remembers the last profile you used for each account, so the next file from the same bank is set up for you automatically.

3b. Pick the description fields (OFX / QFX / QIF)

Structured files have no columns to map. Instead Doric shows a preview of the fields it found (like NAME, MEMO, or TRNTYPE) and you click the header of the field(s) you want to use as the transaction description. There's a Negate amounts checkbox here too, for the same reason as above.

4. Import

Click Import. Doric reports the outcome — for example, Done: 42 ready to review, 3 duplicates skipped, 0 errors — and offers a Review now → link. Rows that exactly match something already in your books are skipped automatically, so re-importing an overlapping file is safe. Clear resets the form to start over.

Nothing has touched your books yet. Imported rows wait in the Review queue until you approve them.

Reviewing what you imported

After an import, open the Review page. Every imported row shows up here, grouped by where it came from, with its date, account, description, payee, amount, and category. This is where you categorize and approve.

Accept posts a single row into your register. Exclude drops it (for something you don't want to keep).
Accept All and Reject All handle the whole queue at once — or just the selected account, if you've filtered to one.
Click a row's category to assign it from a searchable list, or its payee to set who it was. A suggested payee Doric picked up from the data shows in italics with an asterisk until you confirm it.
When you set a category by hand, Doric offers to Remember that payee → category choice as a rule, so the next matching transaction is categorized for you.

Three switches at the top control what accepting a row does automatically: Auto-create payees, Auto-create accounts from categories, and Save payee → category rules.

Two chips let you focus the queue: ⚠ Duplicates gathers rows that share a date and amount with a transaction already in your books (a softer warning than the exact matches skipped at import), and Uncategorized shows the rows still needing a category. When the queue is empty you'll see Nothing to review.

Tip: if a transaction is a payment between two of your own accounts — say a credit-card payment — categorize it as a transfer rather than an expense. See Transfers for why that matters.

Importing accounts

The Accounts tab sets up your chart of accounts from a CSV in one go — handy when migrating from another program. Required columns are Full Path (or Name) and Type; Description is optional. Parent accounts are created automatically from the path, so a row like Expenses : Food (or Expenses:Food) creates both. Doric shows a preview first — uncheck rows to exclude them — then click Import Accounts.

Importing payees

The Payees tab brings in a payee list from a CSV. The only required column is Name. Optional columns cover the rest of a payee's details: Type, Address 1, Address 2, City, State, ZIP, SSN/EIN, and 1099 Eligible. As with accounts, preview the rows, uncheck any you don't want, and click Import Payees.

Where to go next

Once your transactions are in the register, learn how to categorize and act on them in The Register, handle account-to-account moves in Transfers, and see the whole picture in Reports.