QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online conversion candidates

In general, a typical company can be migrated from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online without impact to its critical financial data; the data remains unchanged and accessible on the QuickBooks Desktop system after a conversion takes place. However, there are a number of features in QuickBooks Desktop that are either changed or unsupported in QuickBooks Online. Companies that use these features may need to reevaluate their process in order to make a successful conversion.

When converting a company file that relies on a third-party app, the data migration automatically generates an ID mapping table that allows developers to reference transaction IDs from before and after the conversion. Refer to Accessing entity IDs in a converted company filefor details.

Companies that meet either or both of the following criteria cannot be migrated at the current time. Outside of these two issues, any company can be migrated.

• Multicurrency—If your company uses the multicurrency function, it cannot be migrated to QuickBooks Online.
• Files with more than 350,000 transaction line items—Extremely large databases cannot be migrated.

If you attempt to migrate a company that meets either condition, QuickBooks Desktop throws an error stating that conversion is not supported.

The following features are not present in QuickBooks Online. The first section details features that are not present, but have known workarounds or third-party apps that can be used to implement similar functionality. The second section identifies features that do not have such methods identified.

These features are not supported in QuickBooks Online, but there are alternatives available. Some workarounds require custom configuration within QuickBooks Online, while others are available from a third-party app, as noted.

• Progress Invoicing
• Job Costing—supported when using Intuit Online Payroll
• Price Levels—Products and Services in QuickBooks Online can be used for this, but existing price level definitions are not converted.
• Mileage tracking—TriNet Expense can support this feature
• Print mailing labels—QuickBooks Online does not currently support mailing label printing. However, users can create a report with the desired data (e.g., an employee address report) and print the labels via Excel.
• Advanced inventory—For advanced inventory features, users can try SOS Inventory
  • Group items—Group Items are not supported in QuickBooks Online, but all existing components will be transferred and displayed as a line item.
  • Assemblies—DucoTrax on Apps.com can assist
  • Reorder points
  • Units of measure

These features do not have defined workarounds. If your company relies heavily on any of these features, migrating to QuickBooks Online can present additional challenges.

• Custom fields on lists—Custom fields for customers, employees, items, and vendors will not convert from QuickBooks Desktop. Custom fields are available to be added to forms.
• Reminders—QuickBooks Online puts an alert on the home page when important tasks are coming up. However, these tasks cannot be customized, nor can the timing of the reminders.
• Discounts—When converting your desktop edition data, discounts already given to customers for early payment of invoices are converted as credit memos, applied to the customer’s outstanding balance. The discount will be listed in the Product & Service field entitled “PmntDiscount_Cost of Goods Sold”. Discounts taken from vendors for early payment of bills are converted as vendor credits, applied to the vendor’s outstanding balance.
• Finance Charges—Your existing finance charge invoices are converted as invoices in QuickBooks Online with no data loss.QuickBooks Online currently doesn’t have an automatic way to assess finance charges for late customer payments. You can run a report to see which customers are overdue and manually add finance charges that will appear on the customers’ next invoices.
• Advanced Sales Form customization—None of the templates in your QuickBooks Desktop edition data file are converted to QuickBooks Online, and your logo isn’t converted. You can add your logo after conversion, however.
• Recurring “received payments” processing—Payments received from customers in your QuickBooks Desktop edition data file are all converted to payments in QuickBooks Online. However, discounts are converted to Credit Memos and linked to the payment. And the product/service item on the converted discount that is now a credit memo in QuickBooks Online is “PmntDiscount_Cost of Goods Sold.
• Support for printing Wallet checks
• Multiple shipping addresses and emails
• Partial Purchase Orders—Open purchase orders are migrated to QuickBooks Online intact and remain in “Open” state. Those that are Received in Full or Closed in QuickBooks Desktop are migrated as “Closed” in QuickBooks Online.