QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Converting from Another Program to QuickBooks

If you launched your small business from your basement and kept your records with Quicken Home & Business Edition, your accountant has probably recommended that you make the leap to using QuickBooks. On the other hand, you may have used another accounting program like Peachtree or Small Business Accounting and have decided to move to QuickBooks. Regardless of which other program you used, the command to convert your records to QuickBooks is the same: Choose File→Utilities→Convert. Then choose From Quicken, From Peachtree, or From Microsoft Small Business Accounting or Microsoft Office Accounting. The rest of this section explains what to do after that.

Converting from Quicken Home & Business

Quicken doesn’t report your business performance in the way that most accountants want to see, nor does it store your business transactions the way QuickBooks does. If you want the conversion to proceed as smoothly as possible, do some cleanup in your Quicken file first.

For example, you have to record overdue scheduled transactions and send online payments before you convert your Quicken file. Also, delete accounts you don’t want in QuickBooks because, once they’re in QuickBooks, you can’t delete accounts that have any transactions. And make sure that customer names are consistent and unique. QuickBooks doesn’t support repeating online payments, so you also have to send an instruction in Quicken to delete any repeating online payments you’ve set up. In addition, you need complete reports of your past payroll because Quicken payroll transactions don’t convert to QuickBooks.

Intuit publishes a detailed guide to help you prepare for a Quicken conversion, but finding it isn’t easy. If you try searching the QuickBooks support site, keywords like “quicken quickbooks convert” or “Quicken to QuickBooks Conversion Guide” don’t return the answer you need. Instead, go to http://tinyurl.com/2af78q5and follow the instructions there.

Note

If you run into problems converting from Quicken to QuickBooks, contacting Intuit’s technical support could just intensify your headache. You’re likely to get bounced back and forth between Quicken and QuickBooks tech support, with neither one being particularly helpful. If you’ve already cleaned up your Quicken file and run into conversion problems in QuickBooks, check the QuickBooks company file for errors by choosing File→Utilities→Verify Data, described on Running the Verify Data Utility. Another potential solution is to remove transactions prior to the current fiscal year before converting the file. If nothing you try works and you’re willing to send your financial data to Intuit, QuickBooks technical support may agree to convert the file for you.

When your Quicken file is ready for conversion to QuickBooks, you have two options in QuickBooks:

• Choose File→New Company. In the EasyStep Interview window, click Convert Data and then choose Quicken.

• Choose File→Utilities→Convert→From Quicken.

Converting from a Non-Intuit Program

To convert files created in other accounting programs like Peachtree or Small Business Accounting, you have to download a conversion tool from the QuickBooks website. Choose File→Utilities→Convert and then choose the program you want to convert from. In the dialog box that opens, click Yes to tell QuickBooks to go online to download the QuickBooks Conversion Tool. Then scroll down to the bottom of the web page that opens and click the “Get free downloadable Conversion Tool” link. Fill in the boxes for your name, company name, and email address and then click Submit.