“My Canadian bank file will not import”
Short answer
Canadian banks use ISO, day-first and month-first depending on the institution, so set the date format explicitly during import. Garbled Québécois payee names mean the file's encoding disagrees with its declared charset — StatementFix flags that contradiction in the browser, though a fresh download usually fixes it faster. A rejection on account grounds means choosing the variant named for the program you use.
Canadian bank exports sit between the American and European conventions, which is exactly where importers get confused. Add French-language payee names and the two most common failures — dates and encoding — both become likely at once.
Symptoms
Accented payee names arrive as garbage Dates import a month out for part of the year A QFX download is refused as not a valid Web Connect file
What actually causes it
Accented characters in payee names
Québécois merchant names carry accents, and a mismatch between the file's encoding and its declared charset turns each one into two or three strange characters. The bytes are intact; the alphabet used to read them is wrong.
Mixed date conventions
Canadian institutions use ISO, day-first and month-first depending on the bank and the export. Accepting your software's default rather than matching the file is what makes some dates land a month away.
Format labels that name software rather than formats
Downloads described as Quicken or Money carry different identifiers. Picking the wrong one produces a file your software rejects on account grounds while the transactions inside are perfect.
How to fix it
- Drop the file into the fixer below: encoding mismatches, date shapes and structural defects are reported together.
- Set the date format explicitly during import; with mixed conventions the default is a coin toss.
- Prefer re-downloading over patching when accents are broken — a fresh export usually has consistent bytes and header.
- If your software rejects the file on account grounds, download the variant named after the program you actually use.
Skip the manual edit — fix it automatically
The fixer flags a header that declares ASCII while the content carries accents, which is the exact contradiction behind broken French payee names. Free, no signup, no upload.
Open the fixer