How does the conversion process work

The following list details an overview of the conversion process; each step is described in later sections of this article for more information:

How long will it take to transfer my data?

The process of converting your data takes, on average, up to 72 hours from the time your data is uploaded in to the Dataswitcher tool.

Contact the QuickBooks Online support team if it has been longer than 72 hours.

How will my business data be protected?

Your business data is protected in the following ways:

• as long as you use the online form to upload, we will protect your data using industry standard SSL encryption
• your data is governed by Intuit’s Data Stewardship Principles

What Acomba data will not be transferred?

Information that is not supported in the conversion from Acomba

• Departments
• Projects
• Inventory List (product & services)
• Bank Reconciliations
• Budgets
• Memorized transactions
• Estimates
• Purchase Orders
• Sales Orders
• Custom templates

Limitations

We aim to cover all possible scenarios of your source accounting system when converting it to the new one, however as all systems have subtle variations, it is not always possible to convert everything for all accounting periods. It is important that you take your time to understand the limitations of our service conversion limitations for all systems.

In addition, Acomba also has the following specific constraints:

Fiscal year

Dataswitcher only supports the conversion of one fiscal year.

The year-end routine must be completed in Acomba before creating the backup file and submitting it for conversion. Accounting periods should also be closed. This will ensure that during final checks financial data converted from Acomba matches that which is brought forward to QuickBooks Online.

Cash refunds and cheque refunds will be posted as journals

QuickBooks Online does not support refunding a cash payment or cheque from a supplier. These entries will be posted as regular journals with no direct link to the customer or supplier.

Reversed journals will not be posted

Reversed journals will not be posted.

Some debtor or creditor transactions may look different in QuickBooks Online

Dataswitcher might need to use a dummy "zCustomer" or "zSupplier" account to align your Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP) history. AR/AP auto-matching occurs when there are AR/AP transactions not assigned to any customer or supplier.
Dataswitcher will attempt to auto-allocate all customers and suppliers that have a zero amount outstanding on conversion date with a special algorithm. If you have posted directly to your AR or AP system accounts, you will need to correct this post-migration.
Dataswitcher will attempt to match your historical AP and AR reports at key dates (year-end and conversion date). Between these dates, the reports might show differences. When checking the AR and AP reports, please make sure that the data from Acomba is correct. There are some circumstances where open invoices do not show up in the summary but are shown in the detailed view in Acomba.

Please ensure you validate your records at one of these dates:
Last transaction date in the file
Migration date (the date when your data moved to QBO)
Year-end
Alignment of AR/AP only takes place on these dates.

Quickbooks Online does not support multiple AR and AP accounts. When multiple AR/AP accounts are used in Accomba, these will be merged in QBO. The AR/AP accounts with linked records will become the main AR/AP accounts.
Transfers between AR/AP accounts will be treated as journals. If you have purged data from your file, payments and invoices will be posted as journals instead. You might have to allocate debits to credits for customers/suppliers that have an outstanding amount on the migration date.
If your AR/AP accounts do not align with the total outstanding balances on the accounts payable or receivable aged trial balance in Acomba, Dataswitcher will post these discrepancies to dummy "zCustomer" or "zSupplier" accounts.

We will copy dates straight from the file

Acomba makes its postings based on the period they were added, however QuickBooks uses the actual date. Where a transaction is dated outside of the usual range may be displayed differently in QuickBooks.
Example: in the fiscal year ended 31-12-2019 a transaction in Acomba is created dated 30-04-2091 in error. In Acomba this will be included in the period ended 31-12-2021, but in QuickBooks it will be a future transaction.

Transactional data and Trial Balance

Dataswitcher will migrate the most recent year of transaction data and the Trial Balance from the previous year. All data is migrated as journal entries. AR/AP aging detail at the migration date will be imported as journal entries.

Foreign data will be converted in home-currency

All foreign currency data is converted into home currency. The historical exchange rate in Acomba will be used to do the conversion.

Historical migrations of accounts

Acomba allows you to transfer balances to new accounts at the close of the fiscal year (transferring of opening balances). QuickBooks does not support this as it does not support fiscal years so Dataswitcher closes the account off at the start of the fiscal year.
Example:
An old account 1250 was used in 2018 and at the start of the year 2019 you renumber this account to 1251.
Dataswitcher will close the balance (example 1,500.00) of account 1250 to 0.00.
Dataswitcher will open the balance in 2019 of 1251 with 1,500.00.
AR/AP starting and ending balances are not supported in QuickBooks and may show discrepancies when comparing the Trial Balances. The end balances will be correct. Dataswitcher cannot align end balances with their start balances for these AR/AP accounts. When comparing AR and AP reports in QuickBooks to Acomba, please ensure you are using the "Current" setting.

Financial start date

Acomba allows a start date part-way through a month, e.g. 14-01-2020, however, in QuickBooks it must be the first day of the month, e.g. 01-01-2020. Please keep this in mind when you are checking your Trial Balance as it can cause a difference. Your retained earnings may also show a difference.

Check your retained earnings

Acomba allows a posting for an opening balance of an account. In some cases (especially for new files, or if a year-end close routine has not been run) Dataswitcher cannot reconstruct the account used (often it is retained earnings). Dataswitcher will create the opening balance transaction and will send the net result to the retained earnings account in QuickBooks. You will need to review your retained earnings post-migration to validate. In some cases, it will be beneficial for Dataswitcher to use the opening balance equity account. You may wish to create a journal to transfer to Retained Earnings to reconcile the account.

Forward journals (Next Year) will not be posted

Any journals created for future years will not be posted to QuickBooks.

Items and stock

Dataswitcher will convert code, stock code, location, name and description. Other fields may not be automatically updated. Current stock, purchase and sales price are also posted. Income and asset account are not posted to QuickBooks.

Positions for Chart of Account numbers

QuickBooks does not support Chart of Account numbers that are longer than seven digits. Acomba accounts containing more than seven digits will prevent migration. Multiple linked accounts may also prevent migration.

Renaming of Acomba system accounts

Dataswitcher supports renamed balance sheet accounts, however renaming the system accounts (Retained Earnings, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, etc.) can cause issues. Suspense accounts may be shown as "zCustomer" or "zVendor" after the conversion.

Pre-migration checklist

Get started converting your data to QuickBooks Online

You can visit our migration wizard to get started.

Review your migration

Following the migration you’ll find a report inside of your QBO file that provides details on the success of your migration. The report compares the Balance Sheets, Profit and Loss, and AR and AP Aging summary reports for both your source file and QBO. It includes a detailed account list for all accounts in the file along with their balance in the source file and QBO. It also has information about any discrepancies that occurred during the migration that you may want to manually edit.

This report is located within the Expenses tab under a supplier named Dataswitcher. Click on the gear icon then Attachments to find the Report.pdf attachment.

Start using QuickBooks Online

Once you’ve performed the tasks described in this document you can start using QuickBooks Online. If you have any questions about any of these tasks,  contact the QuickBooks Online support team.