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.

If you have more than 50,000 transactions per module in your QuickBooks organisation, you have to migrate your data to Zoho Books manually.

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.
• Go to the QBO Migration module from the left sidebar.
• Under Direct Migration, click Migrate Manually.

Read our help document on the Manual Migration tool to continue migrating your data to Zoho Books.

If you have less than 50,000 transactions per module in your QuickBooks organisation, you can proceed to the next step.

2. Fetch Data From QBO

After connecting your QuickBooks organization with Zoho Books, you should fetch your your masters and transactions from QuickBooks. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module on the left sidebar.
• Click Fetch Data in the Fetch Data From QBO section.

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

Once you click Fetch Data, your masters and transactions will be fetched and stored securely on our servers. You can update them in Zoho Books later.

3. Add GST Details

If your business is registered for GST, you can add your GST details in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module on the left sidebar.
• In the Add GST Details section, click Configure.
• Enter your GSTIN in the GSTIN field.
• Click Save.

If your business is registered for composition scheme, SEZ or overseas trading, you can configure those options under GST settings later.

4. Update Masters in Zoho Books

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

• Go to the QBO Migration module on the left sidebar.
• In the Update Masters in Zoho Books section, click Update Masters.
  

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

This will update all your masters in your Zoho Books organisation.

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

• If you face errors while updating 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 updated in this section are:

• Items
• Customers
• Vendors
• Chart of Accounts
• Projects
• Composite Items

5. Update Transactions in Zoho Books

After updating your masters, you should update your sales and purchase transactions in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Go to the QBO Migration module on the left sidebar.
• In the Update Transactions in Zoho Books section, click Update Transactions.

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

This will update all your transactions in your Zoho Books organisation.

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

• If you face errors while updating your 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 updated under Purchase transactions are:

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

The modules updated under Sales Transactions are:

• Quotes
• 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

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

You should verify your closing balances to check if the closing balances calculated by QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books are the same. Here’s how:

• Log in to your Zoho Books organisation.
• Select the QBO Migration module on the left sidebar and click Verify Closing Balances.
  

In the next page, you’ll see a summary of the closing balance in Zoho Books, QuickBooks, and the net difference in closing balances.

When you select an account, you can see all transactions recorded in Zoho Books and those imported from QuickBooks.

Ensure that there is no mismatch between the transactions recorded in Zoho Books for that account and the transactions imported from QuickBooks If there is a mismatch, click the Adjust Difference dropdown on the top-right corner of the page and:

• Select Add Journal Entry if you want to create a manual journal in Zoho Books to adjust the difference.

  • In the New Journal page, enter the Date on which you created the journal entry in your QuickBooks organisation.
  • Enter the Reference Number to which the journal will be associated.
  • In the Notes field, enter the reason for creating the journal entry.
  • Check the Journal Type as Cash based journal if you adjusted the difference by cash.
  • Select the currency in which the journal entry was made from the Currency dropdown.
  • Select the Account from which the amount is debited and an account to which the amount is credited.
  • Choose the contact whom you wish to associate to the journal entry.
  • Enter the Debit and Credit amount that needs to be recorded. Ensure that the amount debited is equal to the amount credited.
  • Click Save and Publish.

Refer to our help document on Manual Journals for more information.

• Select Add Transaction if you want to create a transaction in Zoho Books to adjust the difference.

  • You’ll be redirected to the New Invoice page where you can create a new invoice to adjust the difference.
  • Click Sales in the left sidebar if you want to create a quote, sales order, invoice, or credit note.
  • Click Purchases in the left sidebar if you want to create an expense, bill, purchase order, or vendor credit.
  • Click the + button next to the module. In the creation page, enter the required details.
  • Enter the transaction date as the date on which you created the transaction in your QuickBooks organization.
  • Click Save.

• Select Adjust Opening Balance if you want to adjust the opening balance recorded in Zoho Books to adjust the difference.

  • In the Opening Balances page, select the account for which you want to adjust the opening balance.
  • Enter the Debit and Credit balance for that account.
  • Click Continue.

Refer to our help document on Opening Balances for more information.

If the trial balance you imported is incorrect, you can change it. Here’s how:

• Click Re-Import Trial Balance on the top right corner of the Verify Closing Balance page.
• You’ll be redirected to the Import Trial Balance and Journal Report page where you can import the correct trial balance.

After importing the trial balance and verifying the closing balances, ensure that the net difference in the closing balance in Zoho Books and the closing balance in QuickBooks is zero for all the accounts.

• Next, click Complete Migration at the bottom of the page.

This will complete the migration process and you can start using Zoho Books to manage your business finance.

Troubleshooting Errors

When you migrate your data from QuickBooks into Zoho Books, you may encounter errors in certain cases. To help, we’ve outlined common errors, what they mean, and how to fix them.

Module	Error displayed	What went wrong?	What can you do?
Items	Inventory tracking is disabled.	You have enabled inventory tracking for the selected item in your QuickBooks organization but not in Zoho Books.	To import the item, you have to enable inventory tracking in Zoho Books. Here’s how: Go to Settings > Preferences > Items > Enable Inventory Tracking and enable inventory tracking for your item.
Items	Items can be associated only with income accounts.	You’ve selected Sales as the Item Type for the item but have associated a Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) or expense account with it.	Select Income in the Account column and import the item into Zoho Books.
Items	Purchased items can be associated only with Cost of Goods Sold(COGS) accounts.	You’ve selected Purchase as the Item Type for the item but have associated an Income account with it.	Select Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) in the Account column and import the item into Zoho Books.
Customers	Enter a valid GSTIN / UIN	The GSTIN/UIN entered is invalid.	Ensure that you have entered a valid GSTIN/UIN in your import file. Check out the formats for GST-related information recognized by Zoho Books.
Customers/Vendors	Invalid PAN	The PAN entered is in the wrong format.	Verify the format of the PAN entered in your import file or Enter the PAN using the customer’s GSTIN or vendor’s GSTIN.
Customers/Vendors	Invalid value passed for the field PAN.	The PAN entered is invalid.	Ensure that you have entered the valid PAN details in your import file.
Bills	IGST cannot be applied as this is an intra-state transaction	You applied IGST to a bill when the state code of your vendor’s GSTIN or the source of supply was in the same state as the destination of supply.	Update the source of supply to “[OT] Other Territory” or replace IGST with the respective GST and import the bill. If you have applied IGST and GST to different line items in the same bill, edit it and apply only one of them or create two bills applying GST and IGST separately and import them into Zoho Books.
Bills	IGST has to be applied as this is an inter-state transaction	You applied GST to a bill when the state code of your vendor’s GSTIN or the source of supply was in a different state than the destination of supply.	Update the source of supply according to the state code of your vendor’s GSTIN or replace GST with the respective IGST and import the bill. If you have applied IGST and GST to different line items in the same bill, edit it and apply only one of them or create two bills applying GST and IGST separately and import them into Zoho Books.
Bills	Bills should not be present more than once in the payment	You have associated multiple vendor payments to the same bill.	Remove the additional vendor payments associated with the bill in your file and import the bill into Zoho Books.
Bills/Invoices	The due date should be after the bill/invoice date	The due date is the same as the invoice or bill date.	Modify the due date to a later date and import the invoice or bill into Zoho Books.
Bills/Invoices	The amount entered is more than the balance due for the selected invoices/bills.	The total amount of the invoice or bill is less than the payment received.	Ensure that the total amount of the invoice or bill and the amount entered in the Amount Applied To column are the same.
Bills/Invoices	This error is related to Row 1,090 - Invoice/Bill Number	The invoice number or bill number in one of the rows is in text format.	Re-import the error file to identify which row contains the error. Then, change the format of the invoice or bill number to number or general in your import file to import the invoice or bill into Zoho Books.
Transactions	Invalid Row	The account associated with an item in your transaction isn’t available or active in Zoho Books.	Ensure that the account associated with the item in the transaction you’re importing is available or active in Zoho Books. If not, create a new account and import the transaction into Zoho Books.
Accounts	Duplicate row found in your CSV/TSV file	You tried to import an account with the same name as the one in Zoho Books.	Rename the account with the same name in your file and import it into Zoho Books.
Accounts	Sorry, you cannot add any accounts of type Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable.	You tried to import accounts of the type Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable.	You cannot import accounts of the type Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable since we have default accounts of the same name in Zoho Books. Remove these accounts from your file and import it into Zoho Books.
Accounts	Creation of sub account is not supported for this account	You tried to create sub-accounts for Bank, Payment Clearing, Credit Card or Overseas Tax Payable accounts.	Remove the parent account from the Parent Account column for this account and import the file into Zoho Books.
Accounts	The parent that you’ve chosen does not support sub accounts	You tried to create sub-accounts for Bank, Payment Clearing, Credit Card or Overseas Tax Payable accounts.	Remove the parent account from the Parent Account column for this account and import the file into Zoho Books.
Credit Notes	Credits cannot be applied to invoices in the closed status	You applied credit notes to invoices that are in the status Closed or Paid	Change the invoice number and import the credit note into Zoho Books. or Create a refund for the credit note.
Credit Notes	The credits applied to the invoice is more than the invoice balance	The amount applied from the credit note is more than the invoice balance.	Ensure that the total amount of the invoice is the same or less than the value in the Amount Applied To column of the credit note in the import file.
Credit Notes	The credits applied is more than the credit note balance	The value of the credits applied is greater than the total amount of the credit note.	Ensure that the amount applied from the credit note is the same or less than the value in the Amount To column of the credit note in the import file.

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