How to see how a transaction was categorized before in QuickBooks Online

A guide for bookkeepers and accountants working in Bank Feeds

You're working through a client's Bank Feeds and hit a line like "SQ *BYU MECH 4471 HOUSTON TX". You don't recognize it, the client won't remember it, and the right answer is almost always "however it was recorded last time." The question is how to find last time quickly.

Why it matters

Consistency is most of good categorization. If the same payee went to Repairs & Maintenance for two years, it should probably keep going there, and if it didn't, you want to know before you post. That's especially true when someone else did the books last year, or when you inherit a file mid-year.

Option 1: the categorization history in Bank Feeds

When you open a transaction in Bank Feeds, QuickBooks can show a Categorization history for it. It's quick and it's right there, but it's built around the vendor QuickBooks assigned to the bank line, not around what the bank actually said. That causes two problems:

• A wrong vendor means the wrong history. If QuickBooks reads a memo like "SOUTHWEST AI…" as the airline when it's really the client's landlord, you're shown the airline's history.
• Different charges from one vendor get lumped together. Amazon Web Services and Amazon Marketplace orders may both land under "Amazon", even though one is software and the other is office supplies.

It's a useful hint, but check it against the actual transactions before you rely on it.

Option 2: search the books yourself

You can look up past transactions directly: QuickBooks' search, the bank or credit card account register, or a transaction report filtered to the account and date range. Then look for a description that matches and see which account it went to.

This works, and it's the evidence you want. The cost is time: leaving Bank Feeds, opening another tab, guessing the right search terms, and scrolling. Bank descriptions also vary from charge to charge (a store number here, a date there), so an exact search can miss matches that are obviously the same payee.

Option 3: search by the memo, from Bank Feeds

This is the step BankFeedSearch takes out. It's a Chrome extension: in Bank Feeds you highlight the part of the description that identifies the payee (just "SQ *BYU MECH", say), click Search QBO, and it lists every posted expense, check and card charge in that company with a matching memo, going back up to three years, with the date, payee, amount and account. Click one, click the Category field, and the account is filled in.

Because it searches the bank's own words rather than the vendor QuickBooks guessed, the landlord shows up as the landlord. It uses no AI and predicts nothing: every result is a real transaction from the client's books, and you decide what to post.

When the history disagrees with itself

Sometimes the same payee went to two or three different accounts over the years. That's worth a closer look rather than a coin flip: it may be a one-off exception (a repair that was capitalized), a change in how the client wants it tracked, or an earlier mistake. Seeing every match side by side, with dates and amounts, makes the pattern, and the exception, easy to spot.

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