How To Convert Other Accounting Packages to Quickbooks®

Many times bookkeepers and accountants find that the job they applied for requires them to covert a previous accounting system to Quickbooks®. It all sounds like it might be an easy job and in some cases it is, but most times it’s not. Intuit®, the manufacturer of Quickbooks® does supply some conversion packages for some accounting software. One of them is Peachtree® and another is M.Y.O.B.® and also Microsoft Small Business Accounting/Office® It was found that most people liked to convert at least their Chart of Accounts, which sometimes can be quite extensive, but unless you can match up your Accounts in this Chart with everything else, you will have a lot of problems, so it is usually recommended that you convert as much as possible with the Quickbooks® Conversion Tool (For more information, see below), and then check each list of entries against the same list in your previous accounting package. You want to convert your historical transactions so you know where you have been and where you are going. Once you have your Chart of Accounts ready, you can then input all the other necessary data from the other program, into Quickbooks®

Quickbooks® Conversion Tool.

The tool works best with Peachtree® and MS Small Business Accounting/Office® What it does is move the data from the other packaged accounts into a previously created Quickbooks® account without touching the data in the other programs. In this way, you get your business information automatically transferred including all your key lists, your balances and your transactions. You are the one who decides what you want to convert. Now if you are moving data from packages that you are unfamiliar with into Quickbooks®, the Quickbooks® tool might work or might not work. In some cases, you may find that you have to manually move certain transactions from one program to the other, and this can be time consuming.

Quickbooks® can also help you make the conversion. You want to call them first to make sure they can do it with your specific packages. They have experts who can walk you through the conversion. Of course, they will charge you a fee, but sometimes the small cost of the fee is worth it, if it is going to take you months to do the conversion without knowing if it will work.

After all data is transferred from one to the other, run both programs at the same time with the same data input for at least one month, up to 3 months to be sure you have the same data on both system programs and that your information and data are correct. Once they are, you can switch over to Quickbooks® and make a copy of your old accounting system, just for future reference, if needed.