Ask the Accountant…
Question: I’ve heard about migrating my QuickBooks. What does that mean?
Answer: “Migrating” is the term QuickBooks uses for moving your QuickBooks Desktop company file into QuickBooks Online (QBO).
This is a major work in process. Given that QuickBooks has a 62% market share among U.S. businesses, you can imagine the challenges this transition presents.
QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online are completely different programs, with different structures, features and ways of handling data.
And migrating means moving your entire business history from the Desktop system you have “figured out” to a totally new system that QuickBooks is still modifying.
So far, in my experience, half of the migration projects I’ve been a part of have gone smoothly and half have been a struggle. But also, so far, all but one were eventually accomplished.
Three things seem to be true for now:
· Smaller files migrate faster.
· There are some Desktop features that, if used, delay and complicate the process.
· There are steps to “clean up” your Desktop file before migrating
QuickBooks is still modifying the QBO software and improving the migration process, too. And so, this is one of those tasks that might be better done later, rather than sooner.
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