Question: What is involved in converting from my current accounting software to QuickBooks?
Answer: Converting from other ad specialty systems, such as ASI ProfitMaker, OrderMaster, AIA or Proforma, involves planning and attention to detail, and it is a routine procedure.
QuickBooks is user-friendly, which has something to do with it being the No. 1 accounting software for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Without going into all the details, the critical elements in the conversion process are:
1. Choose a Conversion Date
The first day of your fiscal year (usually Jan. 1) is the simplest because your income and expense balances are all at $0 then. However, I have many distributors converting throughout the year. Mid-year conversions require entering the balances for your income statement, as well as your balance sheet, into QuickBooks. There is less chance for error when starting with zero balances.
2. Input Your Receivables and Payables
Enter the individual amounts due or owed from your customers and suppliers. This makes receiving and making payments simpler to post, and avoids the problem of overlooking one.
3. After Entering the Opening Balances, Compare Them Against Those in Your Old System on the Same Date
Print out and save a file showing your general ledger for the part of the year prior to your conversion.
4. If Possible, Export Your Transactions From Your Old System Into an Excel File for Future Use
Or keep your old software (if possible) to look up old transactions. Export lists that are available for export into Excel, such as customers and suppliers, to be mapped for import into QuickBooks. This will help avoid reentering this data with future orders.
Taking care with your data, timing the conversion and keeping some kind of a duplicate record are the main ingredients to a smooth conversion into QuickBooks.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business. Contact her at [email protected]
