The Top 3 Reasons Why QuickBooks Users Shouldn't Use American Express Cards
Since I provide monthly bookkeeping services for many clients, I tend to see the same issues with specific bank and credit card accounts. These issues will show up when reconciling these accounts in QuickBooks. In particular, American Express cards present the most problems and slow me down when working on them. I am not certain if this is only limited to a certain type of Amex card, but here are the top 3 reasons why I don’t recommend that businesses use Amex cards for business expenses.
Charges are missing in QuickBooks. When connecting an Amex credit card in the Bank transactions page, all charges, credits, and payments should download automatically. Unfortunately, I have noticed that some charges don’t get downloaded and I can only find them when reconciling. This can be as random as a few Amazon charges or charges in a foreign currency. This can take a long time trying to figure out which ones on the statement are missing when there are hundreds of transactions in a billing cycle. If it was just one charge, then it would be easy to find it just by searching the PDF for the amount. But that is usually not the case.
Posted charges don’t make the statement. QuickBooks Online automatically checks off transactions with a cleared date that falls within the statement closing date when reconciling, making this process usually fast and easy. However, with Amex, even though charges will clear with a posted date that fall on the statement closing date or even earlier, they don’t make the statement. I’ve had one Amazon charge as early as 10/14 that didn’t even make it on the statement with a 10/17 closing date. With multiple charges at the end of the month, it is not as easy as just unchecking several transactions as there is no rhyme or reason as to which ones make the statement or not. This means that reconciling the Amex account each month will always have a difference until this problem is resolved, which is a pain.
Statements don’t import into QuickBooks. Large banks such as Bank of America, BMO, and Wells Fargo provide the option to automatically import statements into QuickBooks. This makes it very convenient when reconciling these accounts. I have even noticed recently that QuickBooks Online will auto-fill the statement ending balance and statement ending date fields with the data from statements imported from Bank of America. Unfortunately, statements still don’t even import from a large credit card issuer such as American Express. I have to ask every one of my clients to upload their Amex statements to me, which is inconvenient for everyone, unless they provide me with account access.
