No matter what financial software you use and what software you are migrating to, data conversion is a complex process. While a variety of software company-sponsored conversion tools have worked somewhat, they tended to be either incomplete or version deficient.
Take QuickBooks, which offered various conversion tools that at one time worked great, but failed to keep them current. It also offered free data conversion for some users, like QuickBooks Enterprise clients.
Still, sometimes those services rendered incomplete results and did not produce a file that was identical to the originating source file. Not to pick on QuickBooks, because the same can be said of other software companies that either offered conversion options or tools to migrate from QuickBooks to their products.
Even migrating from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online—especially QuickBooks Enterprise to QBO—has been marred with difficulties for various reasons, not the least of which are Inventory and Sales Tax. I won’t even attempt to discuss trying to migrate back from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop products.
In stepped a group of QuickBooks ProAdvisors who specialized in performing Data Conversions. I won’t mention any names here for fear I might leave someone out. These Pros relied on a variety of data tools to extract data from one accounting platform (QuickBooks Desktop, Sage or Xero), record that data into an intermediary database (like Excel), and then use a tool to import data into the receiving accounting platform (QuickBooks Online or Xero, etc.).
This was a time-consuming process that required a substantial learning curve. It also tended to be somewhat costly based on the amount of data that had to be converted.
While QuickBooks began efforts to improve some of its internal processes for conversion, it also entertained contractual discussions with a Netherlands-based company called Dataswitcher. It has been developing a tool to convert all major accounting platforms to another accounting platform, including QuickBooks, Sage, Xero, =Exact, MYOB, NetSuite, FreshBooks, etc.).
Last year, Dataswitcher began offering a conversion to migrate data from QuickBooks Desktop (including Enterprise) to QuickBooks Online in Canada.
Recently, Intuit announced it had partnered within the US with Dataswitcher to begin offering conversions of Sage 50 accounting data to QuickBooks Online (see this official Intuit website). While the process seems quite lengthy, as described in the document referenced on the website, much of that process aims to ensure that the Sage 50 data is ready for conversion.
In addition, there will be some inherent limitations due to the fundamental differences in the data that Sage 50 records, which QuickBooks Online does not capture (for example, Sage 50 captures Sales Orders, QBO does not).
Most importantly, this seemingly is just the first step of a progressive project to enhance the overall data conversion offerings QuickBooks intends to make available via Dataswitcher. It will begin offering additional software data conversion capabilities in the not so distant future.
Acknowledgments and Disclosures
Dataswitcher is located at Koornbeursweg 75-e, 8442 DJ Heerenveen, The Netherlands.
Adapted source materials related to products published within this feature by Insightful Accountant are for educational and product promotional purposes only.
As used herein, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Desktop (QBD) and QuickBooks Online (QBO) refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc., a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Any other trade names used herein refer to products that may be registered or trademarked, or otherwise held by, their respective owners. They are referenced for informational and educational purposes only.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. None of the vendors within this article have paid Insightful Accountant or the author any form of remuneration to be included within this feature. The article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
The publication of this article, nor the inclusion of this product within the related series, does not represent any endorsement by either the author or Insightful Accountant.
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