First Horizon statement to QuickBooks or Xero: exports, Direct Connect, eStatements and tie-out

First Horizon Bank serves small businesses through Small Business Digital Banking, and larger businesses through BusinessConnect and TreasuryConnect. Its QuickBooks page links two user guides, one for Direct Connect and one labeled Web Connect, and its statement pages describe PDF eStatements you can download. The guides date from 2021 and some details don't line up, so here's what First Horizon documents, and what it doesn't, for getting a business account's history into QuickBooks or Xero.

What First Horizon gives you

• OFX or CSV exports. First Horizon's QuickBooks Online user guide says to sign in to digital banking, select the account, select Export Transactions, choose OFX or CSV from the Export dropdown, enter a start and end date that begins after the last transaction already in QuickBooks, and click Download. You then upload the file in QuickBooks Online with Upload from file (First Horizon: QuickBooks Online user guide, Web Connect, 2021).
• Direct Connect for QuickBooks Desktop. First Horizon calls Direct Connect a complimentary service that lets QuickBooks users update their First Horizon accounts in QuickBooks (First Horizon: Small Business Digital Banking with QuickBooks, no date). Its guide sets it up from Banking, Bank Feeds, Set Up Bank Feeds for an Account; the Customer ID is your First Horizon User ID and the PIN is your password. It says the initial connection downloads up to 16 months of transactions (First Horizon: QuickBooks Direct Connect user guide, 2021).
• PDF eStatements, 24 months. First Horizon says Statements Online lets you view your current statement or statements up to 24 months in the past, and statements are downloadable for record keeping (First Horizon: Online Alerts and e-Statements, no date). Its Digital Banking FAQs say eStatements remain available for 24 months and download as PDF files (First Horizon: Digital Banking FAQs, no date). The small business terms say Small Business Digital Banking users receive eStatements unless they opt out (First Horizon: Small Business Digital Banking Terms of Service, effective March 14, 2024).
• BusinessConnect and TreasuryConnect. For businesses on First Horizon's treasury platform, its page lists exports with QuickBooks, Quicken and .CSV options in BusinessConnect, BAI and SWIFT options in TreasuryConnect, electronic statements for checking, savings, account analysis and business loans, and a super-user administrator who grants each employee access to specific features (First Horizon: BusinessConnect and TreasuryConnect, no date).

Before you start

• Which platform. First Horizon describes Small Business Digital Banking for small businesses and BusinessConnect/TreasuryConnect for businesses with complex treasury needs (First Horizon: Small Business Digital Banking, no date). The export options differ, so ask your client which one they sign in to.
• Bookkeeper access. First Horizon's small business terms say each business must designate a Security Administrator, who sets up users and their account entitlements and has full access to all accounts in the profile. A business can designate whether a user has access for information reporting only, or also for transfers and bill payment, and must request a separate User ID and password for each person (First Horizon). Ask your client to add you as your own user rather than sharing their login. Intuit says accountants can't connect a bank account for their clients (Intuit: connect bank and credit card accounts, updated Oct 1, 2026).
• Closing an account ends online access. The terms say access to the service ends automatically if the accounts are closed (First Horizon). Download every statement and export the books need before a client closes or moves an account.

Where First Horizon's pages need checking

• A "Web Connect" guide with no .qbo file. The guide labeled Web Connect covers linking a bank in QuickBooks Online and uploading an OFX or CSV export (First Horizon). It doesn't mention a .qbo file. Intuit says QuickBooks Desktop Web Connect only works with .qbo files (Intuit: download bank feed transactions in QuickBooks Desktop, updated Aug 5, 2026). For QuickBooks Desktop, First Horizon documents Direct Connect, not a file download.
• "QuickBooks" export on BusinessConnect. The BusinessConnect page lists a QuickBooks export option without naming the file type (First Horizon). Check what the file is before you plan a Desktop import around it.
• Password rules for Direct Connect. The 2021 Direct Connect guide says the password used to connect QuickBooks must be 8 to 12 characters, letters and numbers only, with no special characters (First Horizon). The guides are dated 2021, so if a connection fails, check First Horizon's current requirements rather than changing a password on the strength of an old PDF.
• Where the 24 months comes from. The 24-month eStatement figure is on pages in First Horizon's personal section (First Horizon, First Horizon FAQs). The small business terms we read don't state a retention period (First Horizon). Check what the client's statement list actually shows.
• Direct Connect fees. The QuickBooks page calls Direct Connect complimentary (First Horizon), while the terms say fees are as listed in the fee schedule of the depositor agreement (First Horizon), which we didn't read. Confirm with the client's fee schedule if cost matters.

What First Horizon's pages don't say

• How far back an export reaches. The export steps take a start and end date but give no limit (First Horizon). Intuit says some banks give only what's available on the first download, which may be 30, 60, 90 days or more (Intuit).
• Statements older than 24 months. The pages we read don't say how to get a statement that is no longer online.
• Xero. We didn't find a First Horizon page about a Xero bank feed; we haven't confirmed one either way.
• Which users can export or see statements. The terms allow information-reporting-only access (First Horizon) but don't say whether that includes exports and eStatements.

Which route for which months

• Going forward on QuickBooks Desktop: Direct Connect, which First Horizon says brings in up to 16 months on the first connection.
• Going forward on QuickBooks Online: link First Horizon in the bank list, as First Horizon's guide describes, or upload OFX or CSV exports in date ranges that don't overlap anything already imported.
• Older months, Xero, or an account about to close: the PDF eStatements, downloaded and saved while they're still online.
• Every month: tie the imported lines out to the statement before you reconcile (below).

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, see duplicate transactions after a bank upload.
• QuickBooks Desktop connects through Bank Feeds, either Direct Connect or a Web Connect (.qbo) file (Intuit: set up bank accounts for Bank Feeds in QuickBooks Desktop, updated Aug 5, 2026). 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). Back up the company file first. For months with only a PDF, see can QuickBooks Desktop import a PDF bank statement.

Xero

• First Horizon Bank is on Xero's US list of banks with validated PDF extraction (checked 26 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. First Horizon's export offers OFX (First Horizon), so use it for months still in the export window. 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).
• 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 First Horizon 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 download, or a date range 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 Regions? See Regions statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

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

Where LedgerReady fits

For First Horizon, Direct Connect and OFX or CSV exports cover recent and ongoing months, and eStatements stay online for 24 months; the PDF statements are the record for older months, Xero, or an account about to close, and for any month you want tied to the bank's statement balances. 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.