“The upload fails in my online accounting app”
Browser-based accounting products all validate uploads server-side and report failures in general terms. They enforce much the same rules, so one check answers for all of them.
Symptoms
The upload is refused immediately with a generic error A preview appears but with no rows in it The same file works in a desktop program
What actually causes it
Preamble rows before the header
Account details above the column names push the header out of first position. The uploader reads line one as the header, recognises nothing, and treats the rest as unusable.
Non-comma delimiters
A semicolon-separated file is read as one column per row, so there is data but nothing to map. This is the single most common cause for European exports.
File size or row limits
Several of these products cap uploads at a few thousand rows or a few megabytes. A multi-year export exceeds that and is refused without saying which limit applied.
How to fix it
- Run the file through the checker below: delimiter, header position, blank rows and row count are all reported.
- Delete preamble rows so the header is the first line, and let the checker convert the delimiter.
- Split large exports into yearly or quarterly files and upload them oldest first.
- Upload a short range as a test before committing the full history.
Related import problems
Skip the manual edit — fix it automatically
Knowing the row count in advance tells you whether to split the file before the upload rather than after a failed attempt. Free, no signup, no upload.
Open the fixer