How to Import my Data

1 - Import Limitations 

Import Limitations Why Some Data Doesn't Come Over From Quickbooks Desktop (Uk, Canada)

This article refers to QuickBooks Online

QBDT to QBO Conversion Translation

Accountant's review (Accountant’s Copy process)

QuickBooks Online allows you to add up to 2 accountant users.

This lets your accountant access your QuickBooks Online company from anywhere with an internet connection, so there's no need for an accountant's review copy of the file to be sent out and synchronized later.

Accounts

All accounts (except non-posting accounts) are converted from QuickBooks desktop edition to QuickBooks Online.

Transactions in balance sheet accounts and transactions assigned to income or expense accounts are converted.

For each account, the account number, type, name, description, and subaccount structure is converted.

The bank account number (if any) and notes (if any) are not converted. (There is no Notes field in edit acct window anyway)

QuickBooks Online has an additional level of account typing, called the "detail type."

For example, expense accounts can have a number of detail types, such as Advertising, Supplies and Materials, Legal Fees, and so on.

For accounts where the detail type is obvious (for example, Undeposited Funds), the conversion process assigns that detail type.

For accounts where it isn't clear what the detail type should be (the majority of accounts are like this), the conversion process assigns a generic detail type within the type, such as Other Miscellaneous Income.

Run the Account Listing report (Reports/All Reports/Accountant Reports) post conversion to review the Detail Types assigned. Drilling into the report brings you to the edit account window where you can update the Detail type.

Audit trail

The audit trail QuickBooks desktop edition is not converted to QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks Online has its own automatic Audit Log with a detailed audit trail of every transaction that is added or changed, and the log in/out of users accessing the file.

Activity logging is always "on" with no space constraints.

To see the log, click Gear Icon>Tools menu > Activity Log. Open the audit trail for a transaction by clicking View in the History column. Transaction History report can be accessed by clicking the More tab at bottom of most forms.

Bills and bill payments

QuickBooks Online Essentials and Plus feature Enter Bills/Pay Bills.

All bills and bill payments in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file are converted to QuickBooks Online. The following information either isn't converted or is "translated":

Bills

Excludes inventory Item information: just the correct general ledger accounts are affected.

Inventory Items on purchase orders. Line item information in your QBDT POs (any purchase transaction, posting or not) is converted to the line item description field in the Account Details section of the QBO Plus transaction.

Two-sided items do convert to the Item Details section of the QBO Plus PO.

Note: Essentials and Simple Start do NOT support two sided items. Only Plus.

Item receipts are converted as bills. The Bill Received check box doesn't convert.

Bill Payments

The Discount applied to bill in QBDT is converted as a Supplier Credit. The address on bill pmt cheque is replaced by Supplier address in Supplier list.

 Budgets

Although QuickBooks Online has a similar budgets feature, your QuickBooks desktop edition budgets are not converted.

 Classes

All of the classes on your Class List are converted, and all transactions that have classes are converted with their class information intact.

 Closing Date

Your QuickBooks desktop edition closing date is converted. The password is not.

After conversion the Exceptions to Closing Date report will no longer show the exceptions that you had accumulated. Instead, new exceptions will be tracked beginning on the date that you convert your company file.

Credit card charges

All credit card charges in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file are converted to QuickBooks Online. The new QBO has no specific “Credit Card Charge” form. CC charges fall under the Expense form reflecting credit card used for the charge. The payment method does not convert to the Expense transaction.

Credit card credits are converted to credit card credits.

Bill payments made by credit card are converted like bill payments.

Credit memos and refunds

All the credit memos and refund cheques in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file are converted (with the same limitations as invoices) to credit memos and cheques, respectively, in QuickBooks Online.

The product/service on the Credit Memo will reflect the item that was on the Credit Memo in QBDT.

Custom fields on lists

QuickBooks Online currently does not support custom fields on customers, suplliers, employees, or items.

If you have custom fields in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file, that information is not converted to QuickBooks Online.

Note: Sales rep, which converts to a customer field on sales forms.

Customers and jobs

All of your customers in QuickBooks desktop edition are converted to QuickBooks Online. Your jobs are converted to "sub-customers." However, not all of the customer and job information is converted. See the chart below for conversion details.

 Customer messages

Any Customer Message you recorded on sales forms in your QuickBooks desktop edition file is maintained on the sales transactions in QuickBooks Online Plus. You can continue to assign Customer Messages on sales forms in QuickBooks Online. However, when assigning Customer Messages to sales transactions, you will need to enter the message as opposed to selecting it from a predefined list.

Discounts

Although a terms definition can specify the discount to be extended in the event of early payment, QuickBooks Online doesn't automatically calculate discounts when payments are received.

When converting your desktop edition data, discounts already given to customers for early payment of invoices are converted as credit memos, applied to the customer's outstanding balance. The discount will be listed in the Product Service field entitled “PmntDiscount_Cost of Goods Sold”.

Discounts taken from suppliers for early payment of bills are converted as supplier credits, applied to the supplier's outstanding balance.

Employees

All the employees on your QuickBooks desktop edition Employee List are converted to QuickBooks Online. Though some payroll info will not convert, most employee info does, including payroll items, schedules, rates and SIN.. YTD amounts will need to be inputed during the QBO Payroll setup process.

Mr./ Ms.

First Name

M.I.

Last Name

Address

Print As

Phone

Social Insurance Number

Email

Hired

Release

Estimates

Estimates do convert. QuickBooks Online estimates work a little differently. Instead of turning an estimate into an invoice, you add data from an estimate onto an invoice in QuickBooks Online. Also, you assign each estimate a status: either Pending, Accepted, Closed, or Rejected.

Also, there is no progress invoicing at this time in QBO. There is a workaround for both Estimate v Actual reporting and Progress Invoicing.

Finance charges

Your existing finance charge invoices are converted as invoices in QuickBooks Online with no data loss.

QuickBooks Online currently doesn't have an automatic way to assess finance charges for late customer payments. You can run a report to see which customers are overdue and manually add finance charges that will appear on the customers' next invoices.

The conversion process sets you up to use the following workaround:

Notice that if you use finance charges in QuickBooks desktop edition, after conversion, you will have a "product or service" (the QuickBooks Online equivalent of an item) called "Finance Charge." It has the same rate and account used by your QuickBooks desktop edition finance charge setup. “The item name in QBO is Fin Chg.”

Create an invoice using the finance charge item.

Based on the overdue report, manually enter the amount due for the late penalty charges.

Group items

QuickBooks Online currently doesn't have group items. If you have group items in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file, they are not converted to the products services list.

For your transactions where group items exist, all components of the groups items are maintained in the transactions in QuickBooks Online in the following way:

Each item of the group appears on a detail line when you view the transactions.

Zero-amount lines are at the start and end of where the group item was so you can see which items were part of the group.

The top line shows the group name, and the bottom line shows the group description.

Group total will show on last line of invoice in Description field.

Import/Export

QuickBooks Online exports to Microsoft Excel.

QuickBooks Online doesn't import from or export to other applications using IIF files.

Transaction Pro Importer is the 3rd party to use with QBO for importing transactions and unsupported lists from excel or csv.

Inactive elements on lists

QuickBooks Online supports making list elements inactive. Deleting the list element makes it inactive, and there is an “Include Inactive” option in the Settings icon on Name Lists, and at the top of the chart of accounts, to show inactive elements in the list. Also, once an element is inactive (deleted), there is an “Is Inactive” check box in the edit window, if you uncheck it, the element is no longer inactive.

If you have accounts, customers or suppliers marked as inactive in your QuickBooks desktop edition data file that have an open balance, they are converted to QuickBooks Online Plus as regular, "active" elements.

If there is no balance tied to those names, they will convert as inactive (deleted).

Employees and items (products services) marked inactive in QBDT convert as inactive regardless of balance associated.

New Features for Inventory:

Images on the Items and service list-10 MB Limit for JPG,JPEG,PNG and GIF files. 

SKU (Stock keeping unit) Optional field- for items and services.

Item and service are separate types- ability to filter by type.

Compact view- to turn off images.

Duplicate feature- Duplicate an item or service inactive.

There have been a few changes since  Inventory BETA:

Rate/Price column has been replaced by separate Sales Price and Cost columns.

SKU field has been added (Optional Field) and does not have to be unique.

Sub-Items are now supported.

No Restrictions on the number of items supported. 

QuickBooks Online Plus tracks inventory (FIFO), and inventory parts from QBDT convert as two sided products services in QBO to start. Here is end to end video on post conversion work re inventory items:

Here's how QuickBooks Online handles inventory transactions.

New detail lines are created to represent the effect the purchase or sale made on the inventory asset account or the cost of goods sold (COGS) account.

On converted invoices, sales receipts, credit memos and on some bills, cheques and credit card transactions that contained inventory items, in QuickBooks Online you'll see two new detail lines after each inventory line that represent the inventory asset and COGS amounts.

For each inventory item used on a transaction, we created sub-items: "Inventory Asset" and "COGS;" the additional lines will use these items.

These items contain the same description as their parent item, but have the inventory asset account and COGS account associated with them, respectively.

2 - Importing A Chart Of Accounts 

Want to import an already-existing Chart of Accounts? Here's how:

Choose Plus Sign (+) > Import Data > Chart of Accounts.

Make sure your file fits the requirements for import (must be a .csv or Excel file format and must have Account Type and Name fields). If you'd like, you can download our sample file: https://www.quickbase.com/up/bfwy8i23w/g/re7/eg/va/QuickBooks_Online_COA_Sample_File1.xls 

Click Browse to find your file.

Click Open.

Click the drop-down menus next to the field descriptions to choose which field to import. If you don't use a field, choose No Match.

When you're ready, click Continue.

If you're missing critical fields, we'll tell you with instructions (such as Choose type, Choose detail type, or both).

When you're done, click Import.

Important information to note:

The Type and Detail Type should match the types in QBO.  If not, you'll get an error message in red and will need to change each line item manually.

Right now you can't add new types or detail types; these are hard-coded into the system.  Please select the best fit for each account.  Here's a link to a spreadsheet that has all the detail types listed: Detail Types https://www.quickbase.com/up/bfwy8i23w/g/rhw/eg/va/CoA%20Types%20%20Detail%20Types.xlsx

The import limit is 2 MB or 1000 rows.

The colon character isn't allowed, so parent:sub-account relationships will have to imported as parents first, then adjusted to become subs on the chart of accounts after the import is completed.

The import is ADDITIVE. That means that it will add accounts to the already-existing Chart of Accounts but won't subtract the standard ones that came with QuickBooks Online.

You can't undo this import.

Note: 

You may get an error that reads:  Error while reading the file.  Format may be incorrect.  If this happens:

Make sure the headings in columns A-D are: Account Number, Account Name, Account Type and Detail Type.

The Description field does not import.

Headings are necessary, even if the column is empty or has no data.

Entering headings should clear out the error.

If you're trying to start a new QuickBooks Online company with a Chart of Accounts from an existing QuickBooks Online company, see Transferring chart of accounts and lists to a new QuickBooks Online company.

3 - Post Conversion Tasks 

Making the switch to QuickBooks Online? Here are a few post conversion tasks you'll want to complete to ensure your company file is in order.

Post Conversion Tasks

1. Reconcile Banks, Credit Cards, etc. - After all transactions have been either converted or entered manually into QuickBooks Online, you'll want to reconcile any bank, credit card or other balance sheet accounts that typically were reconciled in QuickBooks Desktop to ensure that everything was converted or entered properly.

2. Run and Compare Reports - When you're done with the transactions and all the reconciliations, compare reports in both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, to ensure that the conversion was successful and accurate. Here's what you'll want to compare:

a. Balance Sheet (all dates)

b. Profit & Loss (all dates)

c. Open Invoices

d. Unpaid Bills

e. Payments being deposited from "Undeposited Funds"

f. Tax Liability reports

3. Enter Payroll - Your payroll information does not import when you convert online.   Payroll payments from QuickBooks Desktop do translate in QuickBooks Online as regular cheques.  To keep your employee records and other payroll reports accurate you'll have to enter the following information:

a. Payroll items

b. Employee information

c. Year-to-date payroll information

d. Deductions

4. Create and Save Custom Reports - Just as QuickBooks Desktop has memorised reports, QuickBooks Online allows you to customise reports and save the report customisations. You'll have to do this yourself in QuickBooks Online because memorised reports from QuickBooks Desktop do not convert. Customised reports in QuickBooks Online can be saved in groups for automatic emailing to selected email addresses.

5. Make Transactions Recurring - QuickBooks Desktop has memorised transactions, but these do not import into QuickBooks Online upon conversion. Therefore, you'll want to find each transaction that you want to memorise, open it, select Make Recurring, and specify the schedule.

6. Prepare Your Logo and Customise Your Forms - Just as QuickBooks Desktop has templates for invoices and other forms you can customize, so does QuickBooks Online. But you'll need to set them up yourself. These customisations include adding your logo, so have a digital copy of your logo ready.