Lili statement to QuickBooks or Xero: push sync, CSV export, PDF statements and tie-out

Lili describes itself as a small-business banking platform, and its accounts turn up in the books of freelancers and sole proprietors. Unlike some app-based accounts, Lili gives you several ways to get transactions out. The bookkeeping job is to pick the right one for each month and prove nothing is missing or doubled.

What Lili gives you

• Push integration with QuickBooks Online and Xero. Lili's recommended connection now starts from the Lili app, and Lili pushes transactions into the QuickBooks or Xero account you map (Lili: connect Lili with QuickBooks; Lili: Lili and Xero). Older connections made from inside QuickBooks or Xero as a bank feed may still work for some existing customers.
• CSV transaction export. In the Lili web or mobile app: Transactions, set the filters (date range, transaction type, amount range), then Export at the top right. The file name begins with "LiliTransactions" (Lili: export your transaction history).
• OFX, per Lili's FAQ. Lili's FAQ says transaction history can be exported as CSV or OFX, and that statements and transaction records are kept for the life of the account (Lili FAQ: integrations and financial tools). Lili's export help article only describes CSV, so check what the client's app actually offers.
• Monthly PDF statements for each Checking and Savings account, available on the 3rd of each month for the previous month. Web: Reports & Statements → Statements (Banking section), choose Checking or Savings and the year, then open or download a month. Mobile: Main Menu → Banking Statements → Account Statements (Lili: access and download monthly statements).

Lili describes itself as a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Sunrise Banks, N.A., and wire transfers by Column Bank N.A. (Lili). Note this in your workpapers, since Sunrise Banks may be the name on the account documents.

Which route for which months

• Going forward: the push integration is usually the simplest. It's Lili's own feature, so use it.
• Catch-up months: Lili's help pages don't say how far back the push integration sends history when you first connect. Check the earliest date that lands in the mapped account, and treat everything before it as a gap to fill from the CSV export or the PDF statements.
• Proof for each month: the PDF statement shows the opening and closing balance for the period (Lili). The CSV export doesn't include a balance column, so the statement is what you tie out to, whichever file you import.

QuickBooks Online: know where the push lands

• With the push integration, Lili transactions go into the register of the QuickBooks account you mapped (Accounting → Chart of accounts → View register). They don't appear under Transactions → Bank transactions. With the older bank-feed connection, they do appear in Bank transactions (Lili: where to find Lili transactions in QuickBooks).
• Lili lets you map to your operating account or a clearing account (Lili). Decide that with the client before you upload any older months, so pushed and uploaded lines end up in the same account and you can check for overlaps.
• For months before the push started, 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's page doesn't list OFX for this upload, so don't count on a Lili OFX file going in there.
• Intuit says the file should start at least one day before your oldest QuickBooks transaction in that account (Intuit). If a feed or push already covers part of the period, upload only the dates before it. See duplicate transactions after a bank upload.
• Intuit also says accountants can't connect a bank account for their clients; the client has to do that step (Intuit: connect bank and credit card accounts, updated Oct 1, 2026). Lili's own setup steps start with signing in to the Lili account, so expect the client to do that part too.

Xero: one connection, not two

• With the push integration, Lili sends settled transactions to the Xero bank account you mapped; pending transactions don't sync until they settle. Find them under Accounting → Bank accounts, open the mapped account and select Reconcile (Lili: Lili and Xero).
• If the client still has the old Xero bank feed for Lili, Lili says to deactivate that feed once the push is active, so transactions aren't brought in twice, and not to delete the bank account itself, since that may remove historical data (Lili).
• For older months, Xero says to use OFX over PDF if the bank offers it (Xero Central: import a PDF bank statement). Xero's CSV import 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's PDF import (US and Canada organizations, not the Xero Ledger plan; English, 35 MB or less, up to 100 pages, at least 200 DPI, not password protected) lists banks with validated extraction. Lili and Sunrise Banks weren't on that list when we checked on 26 Oct 2026, and Xero says accuracy might vary for banks that aren't listed (Xero Central). Use the PDF route only if you have no export, and tie it out first.
• Xero treats lines matching ones already in Xero as duplicates and won't import them (Xero Central), but pushed and imported lines can differ in wording, so import only the months the account doesn't already have.

More detail: how to import bank statements into Xero from a PDF and importing transactions older than your Xero bank feed.

Preparing Lili's CSV export

• The export has one row per transaction with transaction date, amount, settlement currency, transaction type, merchant name, status, notes and category (Lili). That's more than QuickBooks or Xero needs: keep the date, the merchant name as the description, and the amount.
• The export reflects exactly the filters on the Transactions screen. With no filters it includes all available transactions for the selected account (Lili). Set the date range to whole statement months and clear type or amount filters, or the file will be incomplete.
• Check the status column. Rows that aren't settled shouldn't go into the books for a closed month.
• Lili's help page doesn't say how the amount is signed. Before importing, check that money out is negative and money in positive, which is what Xero's CSV and QuickBooks's 3-column layout expect.
• Lili's page doesn't say whether the checking export includes Tax Bucket movements. The statement includes Tax Bucket activity within the Checking statement (Lili), so compare the two for the same month.

Tie out each month before you import

1. For each account: opening balance + deposits − withdrawals = closing balance on the Lili statement, to the cent.
2. Chain the months: each closing balance equals the next statement's opening balance for the same account.
3. Sum the CSV rows for the month and compare them with the statement's net change. A difference usually means a filter, a pending row or a Tax Bucket line.
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 Mercury? See Mercury statement to QuickBooks or Xero.

Where LedgerReady fits

For most Lili months, the push integration or Lili's own export is the right tool. We're useful when all you have is the PDF statements: a client who sends PDFs and won't share app access, a closed account, or months you need to tie out to the printed 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.