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Conversion Limitations: QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT)

Dataswitcher will transfer as much data as possible, however QBDT and QuickBooks Online (QBO) do handle data in subtly different ways. It may not be possible to convert everything exactly as it was in QBDT.

This article outlines the specific limitations of QBDT to QBO conversions. Please refer to conversion limitations for all systems for limitations that apply to all services.

Out-of-balance transactions

There are instances where off-balance invoices/bills or journals are posted in QBDT. These transactions will cause an error during conversion and may affect the integrity of the migrated data. In some cases, the conversion process cannot proceed because of these off-balance journals or transactions.

Some debtor or creditor transactions might not be posted as expected

In some scenarios, Dataswitcher will create a dummy customer or supplier account to align the AR and AP history. AR and AP auto-matching only occurs when the outstanding balance of the customer or supplier is 0.00.

Dataswitcher will try to auto-allocate all customers and suppliers that have zero amount outstanding as of the conversion date. If transactions have been posted directly to the AR or AP system accounts in QBDT, this may cause a discrepancy in the customer or supplier reports.

AR and AP transactions are migrated as journal entries where such transactions are not matched to an invoice, receipt, bill, or payment. These discrepancies may require manual adjustments after migration.

Dataswitcher will align historical AR and AP reports at key dates such as the end of the fiscal year and as of conversion date. In between these dates, the reports might show some discrepancies.

When checking the AR and AP reports, please ensure that the data from QBDT is correct. There are situations where open invoices do not show up in the summary but do show up in the detailed view in QBDT. It is important to check the balances on any one of these dates:

1. Last transaction date in file

2. Conversion date (the date when your data moved to QBO)

3. End of a fiscal year

Duplicate Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable will be merged into one as QBO does not support multiple AR and AP accounts. The QR and AP account linked to QBDT's Sales and Expense figures will become the main (default) AR and AP accounts.

If the total balances of both AR and AP account in the General Ledger, as shown in the Trial Balance or Balance Sheet, do not align with the total outstanding balance as shown in the Aging Summary in QBDT, Dataswitcher will post these discrepancies to the outstanding balances of zCustomers or zVendors.

Dates are migrated directly from your QBDT file. If the journals in your file are dated in the future, the transactions will also be posted in the future in QuickBooks Online.

Bill payments' reference numbers

Due to API limitations, cheque numbers may be posted differently between QBDT and QBO. QBO does not allow posting of duplicate payment reference numbers. Hence, if QBDT contains bill payments with the same reference numbers, this will cause the conversion to fail. For this reason, Dataswitcher posts cheque numbers or payment reference numbers in the memo field of a bill payment. If a customer so chooses, references can still be manually added to 'Ref. no.' field but only after the conversion has been completed.

Foreign-currency data will be converted in home-currency

All foreign-currency data will be converted in home-currency. The historical exchange rate in QBDT will be used for the conversion.

Financial start date

If the conversion start month does not coincide with the first month of the fiscal year, this may cause some discrepancies in your profit and loss accounts and/or Retained Earnings. This will be corrected in the next fiscal year up to the current date.

Retained earnings

In some cases, especially when the file is relatively new or no fiscal years have been closed in QBDT, Dataswitcher cannot reconstruct the account used for creating the opening balance of certain accounts. Dataswitcher will create an opening balance transaction and post the net result to the Retained Earnings account in QuickBooks Online. Please check your retained earnings post-migration to see if the amounts from QBDT and QBO match.

Items and stock

The Dataswitcher conversion wizard supports files with up to 1,000 inventory items. If you have more than this, then you can import or create them manually in QuickBooks Online once your conversion is completed. 

Dataswitcher will convert the following data related to inventory items:  

  • Name 
  • SKU 
  • Type 
  • Description 
  • Sales Price 
  • Cost
  • Quantity on Hand

Positions for Chart of Accounts (COA) numbers

QBO does not support chart of account numbers greater than 7 digits long. Long account numbers may cause the conversion to fail.

Renaming of system or default accounts

Renamed balance sheet accounts are generally supported, however renamed system accounts (Retained Earnings, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, etc.) cannot be converted.

Note that if a renamed account contains historical transactions, transactions may be posted to zCustomers or zVendors during the conversion.

Bank payments and bank receipts

Bank payments and receipts will be migrated as journal entries in QBO. All financial data will be migrated, however historical data like payment references may not be present.

Line items for invoices & bills

QBDT individual line items for invoices and bills will be migrated as totals in QBO.

Locations and classes

QBDT's classes is not yet supported. If you have classes, please check below pages to start and manage class tracking in QBO.

Get started with class tracking in QuickBooks Online

Create and manage classes in QuickBooks Online

Information, if available in QBDT, that cannot be converted

Departments

Projects

Historical transactions for inventory

Payroll Information

Bank Reconciliations

Budgets

Memorized transactions

Estimates

Purchase Orders

Sales Orders

Custom templates

Recurring journals for future fiscal year (to be added manually after conversion)

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