Import from QuickBooks

Import from QuickBooks moves an existing company into SeroBooks: the chart of accounts, customers, vendors, items, what was owed on the day you switch, stock, and account balances, and, with the live Desktop import, a whole financial year of documents. You can bring the books from QuickBooks Desktop, either live over the Web Connector or from an exported .IIF file, or from QuickBooks Online.

Every path works the same careful way. SeroBooks first reads your data into a holding area, where nothing touches your books. It then shows a report of exactly what it would create, led by the figures your accountant can check: the trial balance, and what customers owe and what you owe vendors. Only when you press Commit is anything written, and a committed import can be undone as long as nothing has been entered against it. A real move rarely happens in one sitting, so the staged data waits for you: read it on Monday, show the report to your accountant, and commit on Friday.

Opening the import

Choose File ▸ Import from QuickBooks…. The Move from QuickBooks screen opens. The steps across the top, Source, Report and Done, show where you are.

Your role needs access to the import screen to read files and see reports, and separate permissions to commit an import and to undo one. See Roles and permissions explained.

Choosing the source

Under Where are the books coming from? choose one:

The cutover date

Every source except the live import asks for a Cutover date: "The day the books change hands. Everything unpaid on this date comes across; everything after it belongs in SeroBooks." It starts at the last day of last month. Choose a month-end or year-end you have statements for, so you can check the result. Documents dated after the cutover are not imported; enter them in SeroBooks.

Importing from an .IIF file

1. In QuickBooks Desktop, export the file: File ▸ Utilities ▸ Export ▸ Lists to IIF Files.
2. In SeroBooks, choose QuickBooks Desktop (.IIF) and press Choose the .IIF file (files ending .iif, .txt or .csv are accepted). A green tick shows once it is chosen.
3. Answer How did that machine write dates?: Month first (03/04 = 4 March) or Day first (03/04 = 3 April). The file does not record which, and a wrong answer moves a third of every year into the wrong month. If you are unsure, open the file and find a date after the 12th of a month: it can only be read one way.
4. Set the Cutover date.
5. Press Read the file. SeroBooks reads the file and shows the report.

What an .IIF file brings: accounts (including sub-accounts, written in QuickBooks as Parent:Child), customers, vendors and items. When the file also contains transactions, SeroBooks brings across every invoice and bill still owed on the cutover date, for the amount still owed, and the account balances at the cutover. Names with accented letters are read correctly.

Importing from QuickBooks Online

Choose QuickBooks Online, set the Cutover date, and press Read the file. SeroBooks reads the connected QuickBooks Online company and shows the report.

The report: what this would do

The What this would do card says "Nothing below has happened yet." It leads with the trial balance, because that is the one figure an accountant can check:

Below it, a table lists each kind of record:

Notes under the table explain anything that needs your attention. Re-read refreshes the report. Start again goes back to the source step (so does Esc); the staged data is kept.

If some records cannot be imported as they are, a second card lists them ("n record(s) cannot be imported as they are") with Kind, Record and Why. "Nothing is lost. Fix the export or the mapping and read the file again — or commit without them and add them by hand."

Committing

Commit to my books is locked until the trial balance in your file balances and there is something to import. Press it, read Write this into your books?, and press Commit (or Not yet).

The Done step then shows "Writing your company into the books". "A full year takes a few minutes. It carries on whether this screen is open or not — closing it will not stop the import, and nothing needs pressing again."

When it finishes you see Your books are here with a summary of what was created. "Open the Trial Balance and check it against the one you started with. That is the whole test — if those two agree, the migration is done." Start another begins a new import.

Importing live from QuickBooks Desktop (Web Connector)

Choose QuickBooks Desktop (live) and press Open Import from QuickBooks. The import opens in your web browser, where the whole live import runs, because it brings a full financial year and asks where each kind of money should land before it writes anything. If you are working in a client's books as their accountant, the page opens for that client and says so in a red banner at the top: "You are working in client's books."

The page has four stages down one page, and you can leave and come back at any time.

1. Connect the Web Connector (once)

1. Press Create the import connection. Your import password appears. Copy it now: it is shown once.
2. Press Download the .qwc file.
3. On the PC that runs QuickBooks: open the company file, sign in as Admin in single-user mode, then open the Web Connector (File ▸ Update Web Services in QuickBooks, or from the Start menu).
4. Choose Add an application, pick the .qwc file, allow access when QuickBooks asks, and paste the password.

Once connected, the card shows when the Web Connector last signed in and which company file it is bound to; a different company file is refused rather than read into these books. Re-issue the password makes a new password (the old .qwc file stops working). Remove connection stops the import from answering; anything already imported stays. The Web Connector needs SeroBooks to be reached over a secure (HTTPS) address.

This import only ever reads: every request it sends to QuickBooks is a query. It is separate from any QuickBooks Desktop sync you already use; the Web Connector will simply list both.

2. Read the company file

Choose How much do you want?:

Then set First day of the financial year (opening balances are taken the day before), Last day to bring across (the day you stop entering in QuickBooks; year import only), and an optional Label. Press Start reading, then in the Web Connector tick SeroBooks Import and press Update Selected. The whole read happens in that one run; the page shows each step with read, reading, waiting, skipped or failed, and the company name, country and closing date it found. If a step does not land, Retry the steps that did not land re-reads only those. Cancel this import throws the reading away (nothing has reached your books).

3. Check it against the books you already have

The page shows Customers owe and Owed to suppliers beside what QuickBooks' own aging reports say, the opening debits and credits, and Opening Balance Equity. It warns you when the figures disagree and says why that usually happens. Under Tell us where the money goes, choose the SeroBooks account for each kind of money QuickBooks does not record an account for, then press Save where the money goes; without this, documents would import without reaching your accounts. What would be created lists each step with Will import, Already done, Skipped and Problems, and What could not be placed lists records that need a decision. Tax codes the file uses are created in SeroBooks, each kept distinct; tax rates you already have are used rather than duplicated.

4. Write it into your books

Choose where Opening stock arrives at (QuickBooks keeps one quantity per item with no location, so it all lands at the location you pick; move some elsewhere afterwards with a transfer). Press Commit the import and confirm. It creates the chart, the customers and vendors, the items, the opening stock, the unpaid documents and one balanced opening journal, in that order. A large company takes a few minutes; you can leave the page and refresh it later.

After the commit, Does it agree with QuickBooks? compares SeroBooks' trial balance with QuickBooks' own at the same date, account by account, and names every difference. Differences are not automatically errors (SeroBooks may place tax, freight and discounts in different accounts than QuickBooks did) but each one deserves an explanation.

Past imports lists every earlier import with its label, what it brought, the period, its state and when.

Undoing an import

On the Done step press Undo this migration (on the web page, Undo the import). If nothing has been entered against the imported records, SeroBooks removes everything the import created and your books are as they were; the file stays staged so you can correct it and commit again without uploading. Accounts and records the import only matched to ones you already had are left alone.

If something has traded against the import, the window is titled It cannot be undone and lists why, for example payments recorded against imported invoices or bills, new documents for imported customers or vendors, or sales of imported items. Reverse those first if the import really has to come out. (The web page also offers Undo even if there has been trading since — I accept losing it.)

Messages you may see

Tips

• Import into a new, empty company, then check it before you start trading in it.
• Print QuickBooks' Trial Balance, A/R Aging Summary and A/P Aging Summary for the cutover date first; they are what you check the import against.
• After committing, review Accounting Setup so new documents post to the accounts you expect.

Related articles

• Coming from QuickBooks Desktop
• Enter Opening Balances
• Trial Balance
• Restore Company
• Chart of Accounts