By Ryan Balfe on Jul 8 2016

Converting your accounting system that you depended on for so many years can be scary.


Here we address four of the most common questions we receive from concerned companies like yours. Feel free to post your question in the comments section below and we will answer it ASAP!

  1. Is there any chance that I lose my data when converting to Quickbooks Online? None! It is basically impossible. You may notice a couple of discrepancies post-conversion (which can easily be fixed) but you can always go back to your desktop version if you decide QBO is not right for you. You can take comfort in knowing that nothing is set in stone if you decide to try out QBO. Intuit is constantly running free trials – so just give it a shot. If you don’t like it, just let your trial expire and nothing will be erased in your desktop file.
  2. Is there anything that will not convert over to Quickbooks Online? Unfortunately, yes but they can easily be added back in after the conversion. If you have estimates in your desktop version, they will not flow through into QBO and must be added in manually. If you only have a couple open estimates, then you can just manually add them into QBO. However, if you have numerous estimates that are critical to your operation, you may want to consider using an importing tool such as Transaction Pro Importer. Another issue you should be aware of is your sales tax setup. You will need to verify the configuration of your Sales Tax Center within QBO. The liabilities will be completely accurate if you check the register or balance sheet, but they will not be displayed in the sales tax center. Every invoice that you have created in the past will convert over into QBO with sales tax displayed as a separate line item that links to your sales tax liability account (as opposed to being displayed as a calculation at the bottom of the invoice). We recommend fixing each invoice for the current year by deleting the new sales tax line item and have each invoice recalculate the sales tax. Doing this will rebuild your sales tax center!
  3. Will I need to set up payroll again when converting to Quickbooks Online? Absolutely. If you administer payroll through Quickbooks and convert to Quickbooks Online, you will need to activate payroll and will have to rebuild it from scratch. You will need to reference your old payroll detail reports from your desktop version in order to successfully setup and run payroll with your new Quickbooks Online account. You will also need to re-enter your federal and state tax identification numbers and rates and enter in all historical federal and state payroll tax payments. Intuit’s Payroll system does an excellent job of helping you verifying everything is set up properly before you run your first payroll through QBO, so no need to panic!
  4. If I convert to Quickbooks Online, is my data secure in the cloud? We have serviced hundreds of QBO accounts and have never once encountered a situation where data has been lost or compromised. Intuit is a multi-billion dollar global powerhouse with over 8,000 employees. Their servers are a lot more reliable than yours. There is a 0% chance that you will ever experience a problem with losing data. However, you ARE definitely at risk of losing your data from your desktop version.