AceMoney supports importing data from QIF/OFX/QFX files. The banks usually provide data for download in this format. If your bank does that, then login to your account, download file and save it on your hard drive. Then open it with File->Import command of AceMoney and select an account. The transactions will appear in the account after import is done. If QIF file had any categories or payees that were not in your file, those would be automatically added.
Import dialog allows to enable or disable detection of duplicates. AceMoney imports transactions and compares them with already recorded transactions. If detection of duplicates is enabled, AceMoney will not import a transaction from a file if there is an existing transaction in the account for the same amount of money with a date different by less than three dates (past or future). This rule works for the transactions without check numbers. If transaction has a check number then this period is 14 days.
For example, if you already have manually entered a withdrawal of $10 on July 1, 2008 and the imported file contains a withdrawal of $10 on July 3, 2008, these two transactions will be considered the same, since transactions don't have a check number and date difference is only two days.
If account has check #123 for $20 on July 1, 2008 and imported file has check #123 paid on July 10, 2008, then these two transactions will be considered as identical since they were matched by check number and date difference is less than 14 days.
The limits used for duplicate detection can be manually changed. This may be important if you are receiving or sending a lot of payments for the same amount of money every day. The limits are stored in AceMoney config file located in %APPDATA%\MechCAD\AceMoney\config.ini. Type this name in the address bar of Windows Exporer, hit Enter, the file will be opened with Notepad. Search for [Import] section looking like this:
[Import] DuplicateDetectionDaysForNonCheckTransactions=2 DuplicateDetectionDaysForCheckTransactions=14
If the section does not exist, add these lines, othewise just change the existing limits, save the file and restart AceMoney.
AceMoney does not take into account category and payee assigned to the transaction when it makes the decision.
Data export is opposite to import: you can save recorded transactions in QIF or OFX format. You need to select an account be exported and specify a target file.
Additional information: