City National Bank statement to QuickBooks or Xero: Web Connect downloads, online statements and tie-out

City National Bank gives business clients three ways to see their accounts online: City National Online, which its FAQ says eligible sole proprietor and other business accounts can use, and two online treasury management platforms, Business Essentials for small businesses and City National Business Suite for larger ones. Here's what City National's written guides, product pages and 63-page business account disclosures say, and don't, about getting a business account's history into QuickBooks or Xero. This guide covers City National Online, Business Essentials and Business Suite at cnb.com only, not EASI Link, Exactuals or AgilLink.

What City National gives you

• Quicken and QuickBooks downloads from City National Online. City National's guide to connecting City National Online to Intuit says that to download a QuickBooks Web Connect file you sign in to City National Online, select an account from the Account Summary to open the Account Details, select Download from the list of Posted Transactions, select a QuickBooks file, select a Time Period, and select Download (City National: Connecting City National Online to Intuit). The same guide gives the steps for a Quicken (.QFX) file and calls the QuickBooks file a .QBO file.
• Online statements. City National's paperless statements guide says that from the Account Summary you select Statements and Documents, then Statements, where you can view or download electronic account statements, and that on the Statements page you select Go Paperless and turn on the toggle for each account (City National: Receive Paperless Account Statements). It says going paperless stops paper statements in the mail and that changes may take 1-2 billing cycles to take effect.
• BAI, CSV, Quicken or QuickBooks from Business Suite. The Business Suite page lists downloading online statements and images, and balance and transaction data in multiple formats, "including BAI, CSV, Quicken or QuickBooks (OFX) formats" (City National: Business Suite).
• Online statements in Business Essentials. The Business Essentials page lists real-time balance and activity information, online check and deposit images, online statements, customizable information reporting, and multi-user management to control employees' functional and account permissions (City National: Business Essentials). It doesn't name a download format.
• QuickBooks Direct Connect. City National's Treasury Management Services Disclosure and Agreement describes a QuickBooks Direct Connect Service that lets you download account activity from within QuickBooks, says all accounts associated with a specific authorized TIN will be downloaded to the software (so check the file for accounts you weren't asked to catch up), and says access is controlled by a PIN City National assigns (City National: Business Deposit Account Disclosures, QuickBooks Direct Connect Service). The Business Fee Schedule lists Direct Connect Basic Service at $40 per month, with the first 10 accounts at no charge and $2 for each account over 10 (City National, Business Fee Schedule, Rev 05/2026).

Before you start

• Find out which platform the client uses. City National's FAQ says business accounts can be accessed through City National Online by the primary owner and authorized signer, and that businesses can also view and manage certain accounts through Business Suite and Business Essentials (City National: Online and Mobile Banking). The download steps City National publishes are for City National Online. For Business Suite and Business Essentials, City National says it offers a library of help options, including video walkthroughs, once you access the online services (City National: Treasury Management Client Services).
• Ask for your own access, not the client's sign-in. The City National Online FAQ says your user ID is unique to you and you shouldn't share it with anyone else (City National: Online and Mobile Banking). The business agreement says an Administrator can delegate access to a Service to other persons and request that accounts be added or removed (City National: Business Deposit Account Disclosures, Responsibility of Client and Administrators). On Business Essentials or Business Suite, ask the client's Administrator to set you up with access only to the accounts and functions you need; both product pages describe multi-user controls (City National: Business Suite). The agreement adds that access given through an Internet-Based Service is authority without regard to signing authority on the accounts (City National, Internet-Based Business Services).

Clients who set up City National Online before November 13, 2024

City National's Intuit guide says that if a client was enrolled in City National Online before November 13, 2024 and needs to upload a Quicken or QuickBooks file, they need to deactivate the online banking connection with City National Bank within Quicken or QuickBooks, then reactivate it to upload the file, and that clients using Direct Connect or a Bill Pay service for Quicken or QuickBooks for deposit accounts don't need to do anything (City National: Connecting City National Online to Intuit). City National announced the redesigned City National Online on September 14, 2024 (City National: We've Updated City National Online). For QuickBooks Desktop on Windows, the guide's steps are:

• Deactivate. Back up the company file (File, then Back up Company, then Create Local Backup), update QuickBooks Desktop, open the Chart of Accounts, right-click "City National Bank of CA-Web Con", select Edit Account, select the Bank Feeds Settings tab, then Deactivate All Online Services, then Save and Close.
• Download. Download a QuickBooks (.QBO) file from City National Online as above.
• Reactivate. Before you upload, note the date of your last successful connection; the guide says overlapping dates can result in duplicate transactions. Then select File, then Utilities, then Import, then Web Connect Files, choose the saved file, select Use an existing QuickBooks account, and pick "City National Bank WC". The guide says not to select Create a new QuickBooks account unless you're adding a new account.

The guide has matching steps for QuickBooks on Mac and for Quicken, but not for QuickBooks Online.

Where City National's documents need checking

• .QBO or OFX. The City National Online guide calls the QuickBooks download a .QBO file and the Quicken download a .QFX file (City National: Connecting City National Online to Intuit). The Business Suite page lists "Quicken or QuickBooks (OFX) formats" (City National: Business Suite). Intuit's manual upload for QuickBooks Online lists QBO, QFX and CSV (Intuit: manually upload transactions into QuickBooks Online). Go by the file type the download screen actually offers, and prefer a .qbo file for QuickBooks when it's there.
• 14 days or 60 days. The Account Agreement says a business must review each statement within 14 calendar days from the time City National makes it available and notify the bank of a forged or unauthorized item, and separately that a client who doesn't report an error or unauthorized debit within 60 days after the statement date, or the date the information is made available, whichever is earlier, is precluded from asserting it (City National: Business Deposit Account Disclosures, Your Duty to Review Statements and Notifying Us of Unauthorized Transactions and Errors, Rev 04/2026). Flag anything odd to the client the day you find it.
• Business Online or Business Essentials. The Business Builder Elite page says the package includes access to up to 4 accounts at no charge through Business Essentials (City National: Business Builder Elite). The Business Fee Schedule lists both "City National Business Online" and "City National Business Essentials" for Business Builder Elite, with different transaction allowances (City National, Business Fee Schedule), and we didn't find a product page for Business Online. Ask the client which one they sign in to.
• Where the download guide lives. The Intuit guide and the paperless statements guide sit in City National's personal banking support section (City National; City National), while the FAQ says business accounts can use City National Online. We didn't find a written guide to downloads in Business Essentials or Business Suite.

What City National's documents don't say

• How far back downloads go. The Intuit guide says to select a Time Period but doesn't list the choices or a number of months (City National).
• A CSV from City National Online. The City National Online guide names only Quicken and QuickBooks files. Business Suite lists CSV, but nothing we read gives its columns or date format.
• Statement history. We didn't find how many months of statements stay online in City National Online, Business Essentials or Business Suite. The agreement says check images are available online for a limited time as described in the User Documentation (City National, Internet-Based Business Services), which isn't public.
• Platform pricing outside the package. We didn't find a monthly fee for Business Essentials or Business Suite in the Business Fee Schedule apart from the Business Builder Elite entries.
• Xero. City National's Accounting Integration page names connectors for NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and Sage (City National: Accounting Integration). We didn't find a City National page about a Xero bank feed; we haven't confirmed one either way.

Older statements and what they cost

City National's Business Fee Schedule lists a duplicate statement for past cycles at $6 per statement, a research fee of $50 per hour with a one-hour minimum plus $1 per page, and an account research or reconcilement fee of $50 per hour with a one-hour minimum (City National: Business Deposit Account Disclosures, Business Fee Schedule, Rev 05/2026). For a long catch-up, use what's online first and price out duplicates before the client orders them.

Who reconciles the account

City National's Account Agreement has a clause a bookkeeper should know about. It says the client shall employ generally accepted accounting principles to safeguard the preparation and reconciliation of items drawn on the account, and that if the client entrusts the preparation and reconciliation of items "to anyone other than yourself or, if you are a business, to the same person who prepares your checks and other debits, you agree you will have monthly audits of your accounts by a third party" (City National: Business Deposit Account Disclosures, Statement Reconciliation). Its tips for businesses add: don't allow the same person who reconciles the bank statement to also issue checks (City National, Additional Tips for Businesses). Mention the clause to the client, and keep your own access to viewing and downloading.

Which route for which months

• Going forward: whatever connection the client already has or QuickBooks offers, set up by the client, starting after the last month you've imported.
• Recent months: the Web Connect download in whatever QuickBooks format the screen offers, one statement period at a time, with the date of the last successful connection noted first.
• Older months, Xero, or an account about to close: the PDF statements from Statements and Documents, downloaded and saved while they're online, plus any duplicates the client orders.

QuickBooks Online

• Intuit's manual upload takes a PDF or image statement in English, or a QBO, QFX or CSV file. A list file must be 350 KB or less, with 3 columns (Date, Description, Amount) or 4 (Date, Description, Credit, Debit), up to 1,000 lines per upload (Intuit: manually upload transactions into QuickBooks Online, updated Aug 24, 2026). Intuit says the file should start at least one day before your oldest QuickBooks transaction in that account (Intuit). If a connection already brought in some of a month, upload only the dates it missed, or see duplicate transactions after a bank upload.
• To connect an account, Intuit's steps are in Intuit: connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online. Let the client sign in for that step.
• For QuickBooks Desktop, Intuit says you can't download the same transactions into a company file more than once, and once you delete downloaded transactions you can't download them again (Intuit: download bank feed transactions in QuickBooks Desktop, updated Aug 5, 2026), and describes Web Connect as a .QBO file you download from your bank and import (Intuit: set up bank accounts for Bank Feeds in QuickBooks Desktop). Back up the company file before you change its connection or import a file. For months with only a PDF, see can QuickBooks Desktop import a PDF bank statement.

Xero

• City National Bank is on Xero's US list of banks with validated PDF extraction (checked 27 Oct 2026), so high-quality results are likely, but Xero says it validates selected statement types and recommends OFX over PDF when your bank offers it. Business Suite lists an OFX format for Quicken or QuickBooks; we haven't confirmed that file imports into Xero. Xero's PDF import is for US and Canada organizations, not the Xero Ledger plan; files must be English, 35 MB or less, up to 100 pages, at least 200 DPI, not password protected, one file per bank account (Xero Central: import a PDF bank statement). Check every imported month against the statement.
• If you build a CSV instead, Xero needs at least Date and Amount, with money in positive and money out negative in one column, and no opening or closing balance columns (Xero Central: import a bank statement in CSV format). City National doesn't document its CSV columns, so open the file and map them yourself.
• Xero treats lines matching ones already in Xero as duplicates and won't import them (Xero Central), but don't rely on that; import only the months the account doesn't already have.

More detail: how to import bank statements into Xero from a PDF and closed bank account statements into QuickBooks or Xero.

Tie out each month before you import

1. Opening balance + deposits − withdrawals = closing balance on the City National statement, to the cent.
2. Chain the months: each closing balance equals the next statement's opening balance.
3. Sum the file's or feed's lines for the statement period and compare them with the statement's net change. A difference usually means a missing transaction type, an overlapping Web Connect download, or a Time Period off by a day.
4. Spot-check the first and last days of the period and the largest few items against the PDF.

The full method is in check a bank statement PDF is complete before you import it. Our free tie-out checker runs in your browser and shows the row where a CSV stops balancing. Then reconcile one statement at a time, oldest first; if QuickBooks says the beginning balance is off, see beginning balance doesn't match.

Client also banks with Prosperity Bank? See Prosperity Bank statement to QuickBooks or Xero. Or Trustmark National Bank? See Trustmark National Bank statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

Client also banks with Renasant Bank? See Renasant Bank statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

Client also banks with ServisFirst Bank? See ServisFirst Bank statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

Client also banks with Bank of Hawaii? See Bank of Hawaii statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

Where LedgerReady fits

For City National, the published download steps cover City National Online only, the documents disagree on the QuickBooks file type, and nothing we read says how long statements stay online or how far back downloads go, so PDF statements, downloaded and saved while they're online, are the record for older months, Xero and an account about to close. If you'd rather not convert and check each month yourself, LedgerReady turns digital statement PDFs into a QBO file, a Xero CSV, a plain CSV and a tie-out sheet showing every month matches its opening and closing balance. It costs $15 per statement-month, and we aim to deliver within 12 hours. Tie-out guarantee: if the output doesn't reconcile to the statement's opening and closing balances and we can't fix it, you don't pay for that statement.

Bank menus change; labels here were accurate to our knowledge in Oct 2026, so check your bank's help pages if something differs.