Wave transactions not importing from your bank: causes, fixes, and how to fill the gap

When Wave stops pulling in bank transactions, the books quietly fall behind: the Transactions page just stops at some date. This guide covers why Wave's bank imports stop, the fixes Wave's help lists for each cause, how to fill the missing dates from a statement while the connection is down (or if you're on the free Starter plan), and how to clean up duplicates and check the account against the statement afterwards.

1. First: Starter or Pro?

Every one of Wave's bank-connection help articles opens with the same line: "Automatic bank transaction imports are part of Wave's Pro Plan." Wave's pricing page lists Auto-import bank transactions and Auto-merge and categorize bank transactions under Pro, at $190 USD a year, or $19 USD a month, per business (checked November 11, 2026). The free Starter plan still lets you create unlimited bookkeeping records, so transactions get in by uploading statement files or entering them by hand.

So if you're on Starter, or you moved from Pro back to Starter, nothing is broken: there is no automatic import. Skip to filling the dates with a statement upload. Wave connects through Plaid to banks in the US and Canada, for checking, savings, certificate of deposit, prepaid debit card, money market savings and credit card accounts. Other account types can't be connected and also need uploads.

2. Why Wave stops importing, and the fix for each

Wave's help says connections usually break because "your bank has made a change, and Plaid must make an update to restore the connection." When it happens you'll see an error on the Connected Accounts page and get an email saying why. The causes Wave lists, with the fix it gives for each:

Wave says it can't give estimated resolution times for connection problems, that Plaid doesn't investigate individual connections (it monitors them and restores disruptions), and that Wave's support team can help find the cause: open Mave, Wave's chatbot, and ask for the Support Team.

3. Fix the connection, step by step

1. On the left-side menu, click Banking > Connected Accounts and read the error on the connection.
2. If there's a Reconnect button, click it and sign in to your bank again to re-authorize the connection.
3. Check the toggle next to the account. Imports are switched on and off per account, so one account can be Off while the others in the same connection import. Switch it On.
4. When you switch it on, check the start date. Wave selects the day after the last imported transaction; Edit date changes it. "If you select an earlier date, you may import duplicate transactions."
5. If you changed your bank username, or nothing else works, delete the connection: click the trash can icon at the top right of the connection, tick Yes, I want to delete this connection and click Delete connection. Then connect again under Connect account. Wave's help says this "will not affect any transactions that were previously imported," but it stops all imports and deletes all the accounts in that connection; you can't delete just one. If the bank account funds your payroll or receives your payouts, change those first, as Wave's help describes.
6. Wait a day. Imports aren't instant (next section).

When you connect, Wave lets you choose how far back to import: "Depending on your bank, you may be able to import up to 18 months of transactions." Anything older has to come from statement files or Wave Connect, Wave's Google Sheets add-on.

4. How long imports take

Wave's help says transactions generally import once every 24 hours, "however, depending on your bank, imports can take up to 7 days," and you can't choose how often or at what time of day. A transaction from this morning not being there yet is normal. If nothing has imported in over 7 days, Wave says there may be a technical issue for Plaid to fix. To get transactions in sooner than they import, Wave's suggestion is the same as for a broken connection: turn off imports for the account and upload a statement, or use Wave Connect.

5. Fill the missing dates with a statement upload

This is how you catch up while the connection is down, on the Starter plan, or for months older than the connection reaches.

1. Turn off imports for the account first. Wave's help says to "first temporarily turn off your transaction imports under Banking > Connected accounts" before you upload a statement or use Wave Connect.
2. Find the gap. On Accounting > Transactions, filter by the account and note the date of the last transaction that came in. You need everything after it, up to today or to the statement's end.
3. Get a file Wave reads. Wave takes .OFX, .QBO, .QFX and .ASO, and calls a CSV "a more complex option." Download one of the first four from your bank for those dates if it offers them. Wave "does not support PDF files for transaction uploads," so if all you have is the PDF statement (common for older months or a closed account), convert it first.
4. Trim the file to the missing dates. Wave's upload articles don't say that an upload skips transactions already in the account, so don't count on it. Upload only the dates that aren't there yet.
5. Upload it. Accounting > Transactions, click More at the top right, choose Upload transactions, choose the file, select the Payment account (the same account the connection imports into) and click Upload. Confirm the date, the amounts and the description column, then click Upload my statement. The statement has to be in the account's currency.

A Wave CSV needs three or four columns: date, amount (one signed column, or separate deposit and withdrawal columns) and description. Dates have to be YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD and not in the future, and a balance-total row causes a generic error. For a credit card, Wave's rule is the reverse of most bank downloads: purchases positive, payments negative. This is the start of the sample statement's Wave CSV, the file behind the button above:

Date,Description,Amount
2026-09-01,ACH DEBIT GUSTO PAYROLL 0912,-6420.18
2026-09-01,STRIPE TRANSFER ST-K2M8Q4,3184.27
2026-09-02,CHECK 2041,-1850.00
2026-09-02,ACH DEBIT AUSTIN ENERGY UTIL,-412.66
2026-09-03,POS PURCHASE OFFICE DEPOT #1123,-86.43

We uploaded this file into a free Wave Starter test business on October 24, 2026 through Upload transactions: all 31 rows imported, and the account balance came to $1,022.16, the statement's closing balance minus its opening balance. The sample credit card statement's Wave CSV imported all 21 rows, with the positive amounts as charges. We haven't tested a bank connection, or your bank's statement, in Wave. Our PDF to Wave converter page has the full column rules and Wave's upload error messages with fixes.

6. Turning imports back on without duplicates

Once the connection works again, go back to Banking > Connected Accounts, switch the account's toggle On and look at the date Wave suggests before you confirm. Wave picks the day after the last imported transaction, and you may have uploaded statement lines after that. Click Edit date and set it to the day after the last line you uploaded. An earlier date brings those days in a second time.

7. Duplicate transactions: causes and clean-up

Wave's help lists three causes of duplicates when the account is connected:

• The connection was disconnected and reconnected with a start date that includes transactions already imported.
• The same bank account has two connections on the Connected Accounts page.
• You recorded invoice or bill payments, or uploaded receipts, by hand, and Wave's auto-update hasn't detected and merged them with the bank lines yet.

Not a duplicate: if you take online payments through Wave, Wave says you'll see two income transactions for each invoice payment, by design. Statement uploads over dates that were already imported can also leave copies, which is why step 4 above says to upload only the gap.

Deleting, merging or editing a transaction in a period you've already reconciled triggers a warning and can unreconcile that period. Wave's help on bank connections also says connections "cannot be restored to a date or time in the past if a mistake is made," so filter carefully before bulk deleting.

8. Check the account against the statement

After a gap is filled, the account in Wave should match the bank statement for the same dates. The test is simple: the opening balance plus deposits minus withdrawals has to equal the closing balance, to the cent. For the sample statement:

If Wave's figure is off by exactly one transaction's amount, a line is missing or doubled; if it's off by twice one amount, a sign is flipped. Reconcile the period on Wave's Reconciliation page (web version only). If an edit, merge or delete unreconciled an earlier period, Wave highlights it in red with a Fix it banner, and its help suggests: Add Transaction for missing lines, the merge icon for duplicates, the pencil icon to correct the closing balance, and for a pending transaction that's in Wave but not on the statement, End reconciliation then Reconcile period anyway and match it next period. Our guide on finding bank reconciliation discrepancies walks through narrowing a difference down.

9. Symptoms and fixes at a glance

10. Convert your own statement

Utilly reads a bank or credit card statement PDF, checks every transaction against the opening and closing balances, and writes an OFX and a 3-column Wave CSV (YYYY-MM-DD dates, one amount column, card purchases positive as Wave requires). PDF statements get a free preview, and a bank CSV or Excel download converts to OFX free for up to 100 rows. Files are read in memory and not stored.

Utilly isn't affiliated with Wave Financial or Plaid. Menu names change; the steps above are from Wave's Help Center and pricing page, checked November 11, 2026. We tested the Wave CSV upload in a Wave Starter test business on October 24, 2026, not a bank connection. Sources: Transactions are not importing from a bank connection, Turn automatic transaction imports on or off, How often should my transactions update?, Import transactions automatically by connecting a bank account, Supported account types, Delete your bank connection, Chase Bank connections, Upload bank and credit card statements, What to do if Wave can't read your CSV, Resolve duplicate transactions imported from your bank, Fix duplicate bank connections, Manually merge transactions, Delete a transaction, Fix an unreconciled period, Wave pricing.

FAQ

Related guides

• How to find a bank reconciliation discrepancy: 7 causes and a 15-minute method
• Catch-up bookkeeping: getting 12 months of bank statements into QuickBooks or Xero and reconciled
• Free sample bank statement CSV (fictional, with known totals)
• Free sample OFX file (bank and credit card), explained
• How to import bank transactions into QuickBooks Desktop after bank feeds stopped (2026)
• Duplicate transactions in QuickBooks after an import: find them, remove them, and stop them coming back

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• Receipt to CSV: turn PDF or photo receipts and invoices into CSV, Excel, or QuickBooks and Xero bill imports.