Migrate From QuickBooks to Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a powerful accounting software which helps you manage your business end-to-end. In this guide, we wish to help you migrate your data from QuickBooks Online, including your customers, accounts, items, and other modules into Zoho Books, using our DIY migration solution.

Limitations on Migrating Your Data From QuickBooks to Zoho Books

Before migrating your QuickBooks Online data into Zoho Books, it’s important that you’re aware of the limitations of the migration. They include:

• Accounts in your QuickBooks organisation that have the same name as the default accounts in Zoho Books will not be imported
• Bundle items in QuickBooks will be imported as Composite items only if you enable the Zoho Inventory Add-on in Zoho Books.
• The percentage of reverse charge applied to a purchase order will be 100% regardless of the actual percentage.

To read all the prerequisites and limitations on migrating your data from QuickBooks to your Zoho Books organization, refer to our help document.

Steps To Migrate Your Data From QuickBooks to Zoho Books

1. Connect to QuickBooks

To migrate your data into Zoho Books, you should connect your QuickBooks Online organisation with your Zoho Books organisation. Here’s how:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.
• Go to the QBO Migration module from the left side bar and click Connect to QuickBooks.

• Log in to your QuickBooks account.
• In the next page, click the Search for a company dropdown and select the QuickBooks organisation you wish to migrate from.
• Click Next.

You will now be redirected to the QBO migration module, and your QuickBooks organisation will be connected to your new Zoho Books organisation.

2. Configure Profile

Once you are connected to your QuickBooks organisation, you have to configure preferences for your Zoho Books organisation. Here’s how:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.
• Go to the QBO Migration module from the left side bar.
• Click the Configure Profile button.

a. GST Details

It is mandatory for businesses with a turnover of more than 20 lakhs per annum to be registered for GST in India. If your business has been registered for GST, you can configure your GST settings in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Select the QBO Migration module on the left side bar and click Configure Profile.

• Click Configure in the GST Details section.

• Configure your GST settings and click Save.

Learn how to configure your GST settings. This will update your GST settings that will reflect in your transactions, reports and returns.

If you want to file your GST returns from Zoho Books, you should enable online filing.

b. Item Preferences

To track inventory for your items:

• Go to the QBO Migration module on the left side bar and click Configure Profile.
• In the next page, click Configure under Item Preferences.

• Check the Enable Inventory Tracking box and enter the Inventory Start Date (the date on which you fetch your transactions into Zoho Books). This date should be the same as your Opening Balance Date.
• Configure other inventory preferences and click Save.

You will now be able to track inventory for all the items that you have imported into Zoho Books.

c. Other Preferences

SKU for Inventory

You can track inventory for the items in your organisation seamlessly using the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU). To do so, you will have to mark the SKU field as active and mandatory in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Select the QBO Migration module from the left side bar and click Configure Profile.

• Click Configure in the SKU for Inventory section.

• In the Settings page, go to Preferences > Items > Field Customization.

• Hover over the SKU field and click the dropdown button at the right end of the field.

• Select the Mark as Active option and the Mark as Mandatory option.

The SKU field will be made active and mandatory.

Enable Timesheet

To start creating and tracking your projects in Zoho Books, you will need to enable the Timesheet module. Here’s how you can do it:

• Select the QBO Migration module from the left side bar and click Configure Profile.

• Click Configure in the Enable Timesheet section.

• In the Preferences page, click General.
• Check the Timesheet box under Select the modules you would like to enable.
• Click Save at the bottom of the page.

You will now be able to log the time spent on performing individual tasks associated with your projects in Zoho Books.

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3. Fetch Masters

Once you configure your preferences, you should fetch your data including your items, contacts, vendors, and chart of accounts into Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module in the left side bar.
• Click Fetch Masters.

• In the popup, check the I have read the limitations on fetching masters and transactions box.
• Click Fetch.

This will fetch all your masters into your Zoho Books organisation.

Once your masters are fetched, you will receive a confirmation notification in the app.

• If you face errors while fetching masters, download the failed records as a ZIP file by clicking Download Failed Records and resolve the errors.
• Once you’ve resolved all the errors, click Upload files to import the failed records into Zoho Books.

The modules fetched in this section are:

• Items
• Customers
• Vendors
• Chart of Accounts

4. Fetch Transactions

After fetching masters, you should fetch your sales and purchase transactions from your QuickBooks organisation. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module in the left side bar.
• Click Fetch Transactions.

• In the popup, select the date from which you want to import your transactions into Zoho Books and click Fetch.

This will fetch all your transactions into your Zoho Books organisation.

Once your transactions are fetched, you will receive a confirmation notification in the app.

• If you face errors while fetching transactions, download the failed transactions as a ZIP file by clicking Download Failed Transactions and resolve the errors.
• Once you’ve resolved all the errors, click Upload files to import the failed transactions into Zoho Books.

The modules fetched under Purchase transactions are:

• Expenses
• Recurring Expenses
• Purchase Orders
• Bills
• Payments Made
• Recurring Bills
• Vendor Credits

The modules fetched under Sales Transactions are:

• Estimates
• Sales Orders
• Delivery Challans
• Invoices
• Payments Received
• Recurring Invoices
• Credit Notes
• Debit Notes

The modules fetched under Others are:

• Journal Report Import
• Trial Balance Import
• Opening Balance

5. Fetch your Transaction’s Attachments

After you fetch your transactions into Zoho Books, you should fetch the documents attached to different transactions from your QuickBooks organisation. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module in the left side bar.
• Click Fetch your Transaction’s Attachments.

This will fetch all your attachments into Zoho Books.

Once your attachments are fetched, you will receive a confirmation notification in the app.

• If your attachments have errors, download the failed attachments by clicking Download Failed Attachment Details and verify the errors.

• The attachments with errors will be stored in the Documents module and should be attached to transactions manually.

6. Verify Opening Balances

Opening Balances in Zoho Books are the closing balances of different accounts in your QuickBooks Online organisation.

To verify the current year’s opening balances that you’ve imported from your QuickBooks Online organisation:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.
• Select the QBO Migration module from the left side bar and click Verify Opening Balances.

You will be redirected to the Opening Balances module under Settings where the opening balances for all the default accounts will be auto-populated.

• Verify the opening balances of each account and click Continue at the bottom of the page.

You can manually update the opening balances for an account in Zoho Books any time. Learn how.

7. Verify Closing Balances

To verify your closing balances calculated by QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.

• Select the QBO Migration module on the left side bar and click Verify Closing Balances.

• In the next page, verify your closing balances for each account under the Net Credit and Net Debit columns.

If one of your accounts has a difference in the closing balances, you should adjust the difference to complete migration. Here’s how:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.

• Select the QBO Migration module on the left side bar and click Verify Closing Balances.

• After verifying the closing balances, click Complete Migration.

• If there is a difference in the closing balances of an account, select the account to adjust the difference.
• In the next page, select Add Journal Entry, Add Transaction or Adjust Opening Balance from the Adjust Difference dropdown, based on your requirement.

• Compare the transactions in Zoho Books with the transactions imported from QuickBooks and make the necessary adjustments.
• Once you’ve made the adjustments, click Complete Migration.

This will complete the migration process and import your data into Zoho Books.

Migrate From QuickBooks to Zoho Books Using the Manual Migration Tool

If you want to import your QuickBooks account’s data yourself, you can use the manual migration tool. The manual migration tool enables you to easily import your list of accounts, customers, vendors, products and services, sales and purchase transactions, opening balances, and other data from your QuickBooks account into Zoho Books. Also, you don’t have to export the data in your QuickBooks account; we’ll help you export the data. Read our help document on the manual migration tool for more information.

What You Can Do After Migrating

Now that you have migrated to Zoho Books successfully, you can customise your organisation further. You can set up payment gateways to accept online payments or integrate with other apps such as Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics.

Zoho Books also has many features that you can utilise to streamline your accounting process, here’s some of them to get you started:

• Transaction approvals
• Auto-charge for recurring transactions
• Template customisation
• Payment reminders
• Customer Portal