How to get Quickbooks and Bank of Ireland connected: (the hidden switch that breaks your bank feeds)
How to get Quickbooks and Bank of Ireland connected: (the hidden switch that breaks your bank feeds)
If you’ve ever tried (and failed) to connect QuickBooks bank feeds to Bank of Ireland, you’re not alone. Recently, we hit exactly this issue with a client. Everything was set up correctly on the QuickBooks side. Permissions? Fine. Credentials? Correct. Error messages? Vague, as usual.
And yet… no bank feed.
After far more digging than should ever be required, we finally uncovered the culprit — and it’s a surprisingly well-hidden setting inside Bank of Ireland’s online banking.
The problem (that nobody tells you about)
Unlike every other Irish bank we deal with, Bank of Ireland appears to have Open Banking switched off by default. That means third-party apps like QuickBooks simply cannot connect — even though Open Banking is supposed to be standard by now.
No warning. No prompt. No helpful error message. Just a silent “no”.
It only took us five years to stumble across this. Progress!
The fix (save this for later)
If your Bank of Ireland bank feeds won’t connect, here’s what to do:
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Log into Bank of Ireland online banking as an Administrator
(This is important — standard users won’t see the option.) -
On the home page, go to User Groups
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Scroll all the way to the bottom of the User Groups page
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Click on Open Banking
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You’ll see three options, all unchecked by default
These relate to enabling Open Banking with third-party apps -
Tick all three options and save
That’s it. Once this is enabled, the QuickBooks bank feed can connect normally.
Why this matters
Bank feeds are not a “nice to have”. They’re fundamental to:
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Accurate bookkeeping
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Timely bank reconciliations
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Real-time visibility over cash flow
When Open Banking is quietly disabled, it creates hours of unnecessary troubleshooting — often blamed on the software when the issue is actually the bank.
The takeaway
If you’re using Bank of Ireland and struggling to connect bank feeds:
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Don’t waste days resetting connections
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Don’t assume QuickBooks is the issue
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Check Open Banking settings first
And if you’re an accountant or bookkeeper, add this to your mental checklist. It’ll save you (and your clients) a lot of frustration.
If you want help checking this or setting up bank feeds properly, just shout — preferably before it takes another five years to rediscover it.
