You do not start over in TaDa Books. The importer brings your full QuickBooks history: every company, the whole chart of accounts, your classes, your customer and vendor lists, your item list, and years of transactions.
What to export from QuickBooks
The import works from QuickBooks' own report exports. The wizard names the exact reports it wants and walks you through producing each one; you drop the files in and it takes it from there.
Your items come too. Add the Item Listing report (Reports, then List) and every product and service arrives with its description, price, cost, sales tax code and accounts, so invoice and bill lines can be picked instead of typed from day one. Inventory items bring their quantity on hand as of the cutover; the money for that stock is already in your history, so the quantity simply starts where QuickBooks left it. Sub-items become "Parent - Child". Subtotals, discounts, groups, payment items and sales tax items have no item here and are listed as skipped. An item whose account the chart does not carry is still created, without that account, and the result names it so you can finish it in Items.
Due dates and contact details. The A/R and A/P Aging Detail reports give every invoice and bill still open at the cutover its real due date from QuickBooks (without them an imported document is due the day it was written, so it reads as overdue at once). The Customer and Vendor Contact Lists fill each contact's address, phone and email - only where the contact has none, so nothing typed in TaDa Books is overwritten.
What the import promises
The importer's rule is simple: it refuses rather than guesses. Every imported period is checked to the penny against your QuickBooks trial balance. If something cannot be placed with certainty (two accounts carrying the same name is the classic), the wizard shows you exactly what it needs you to decide, and only your answer moves it forward. You will never discover a silently misplaced amount later.
Two accounts with the same short name. QuickBooks prints only an account's short name in the Journal, so "Property" under Insurance and "Property" under Taxes look identical on export. The check tells them apart by their full path, by which one the Trial Balance says had activity, and by the class on each line. Whatever is left, the check shows you as a list: each set of lines, with a choice of the accounts it could be. Pick, then Check again with my answers. Your answer is held to the same penny test as everything else, so a wrong pick shows up as a named mismatch on that account instead of landing. When two placements would both reproduce the Trial Balance exactly, the check says so in an amber note and keeps its own placement unless you change it; renaming one of the accounts in QuickBooks and re-exporting is the way the numbers can settle it without your word.
What arrives as documents
Invoices, bills and the payments against them arrive as real documents, and so do credit memos, sales receipts and vendor credits: you can open them, print them, send a statement, and see them on the Aging.
- Credit memos. Each becomes a credit memo for its customer. QuickBooks' files do not say which invoice each credit was used on, so TaDa Books uses it the way it applies payments: after the payments, on an invoice for the exact amount first, otherwise the oldest one still open. Each customer's balance is exactly what QuickBooks had; which invoice shows the credit can differ. A credit QuickBooks paid back to the customer by check arrives as the refund of that credit memo. A credit is never spent on an invoice QuickBooks closed with a journal entry (a write-off): it stays the customer's credit.
- Sales receipts. A sale paid on the spot arrives as a sales receipt, paid in full by its own payment, into Undeposited Funds or the bank exactly as QuickBooks recorded it, and tied to the deposit that banked it. In TaDa Books a receipt is two entries, the sale and its payment, so each receipt shows as two lines in the register; every account's total is unchanged. A receipt with no customer named or more than one money line stays a deposit.
- Vendor credits. A credit from a vendor (QuickBooks' "Credit" from Enter Bills) becomes a vendor credit for that vendor and is spent on their bills the same way: after the bill payments, on a bill for the exact amount first, otherwise the oldest still open. Each vendor's balance is exactly what QuickBooks had. A credit naming two vendors stays a journal entry.
- Anything that cannot be one document (an invoice with two customers, a bill with no vendor) arrives as the journal entry it is, which you can open and edit like any other.
- Stock cost. QuickBooks puts a stock item's cost (cost of goods sold and the inventory it came out of) on the sale's own entry. It stays on the entry, off the customer's paper, and editing the imported invoice, receipt or credit memo keeps it exactly where QuickBooks put it.
- Paychecks stay journal entries: TaDa Books keeps payroll as entries, not as paycheck records.
- Items on lines, estimates and purchase orders are not in any report QuickBooks exports, so they do not come over.
If you send changes back to QuickBooks later, an imported receipt you edited in TaDa Books goes back as journal entries for its sale and its payment: the totals agree, but QuickBooks lists them as journal entries, not as an edited receipt.
Re-running is safe
Import again whenever you like (say, month end in your old system). A re-run replaces what the previous run brought and nothing else.
Work you have done in TaDa Books that hangs on the imported entries does come loose, though, so the check counts it first and asks: payments recorded in TaDa Books and applied to imported invoices or bills (they become unapplied), a credit memo applied to an imported invoice (the credit goes back to the customer), a vendor credit applied to an imported bill (the credit goes back to the vendor), an imported credit used on an invoice or bill you entered in TaDa Books (it opens again for it), a payment or credit from QuickBooks that you re-applied in TaDa Books to another imported invoice or bill (it goes back where QuickBooks had it), reconciliation ticks on imported lines, bank lines matched to imported entries (they go back to For Review), and documents attached to them (they stay in Documents), and stock recorded in TaDa Books on an imported invoice or bill (it is removed with the document, since the file carries no items). Tick Replace anyway to go ahead. A refund you made in TaDa Books out of an imported payment or credit memo has to be voided first: the import says which.
Some things carry across a re-run by themselves: late fees already charged on an imported invoice stay charged on the re-imported copy (same number, customer and date), so the next late-fee run never charges those days twice, and an inventory item's quantity on hand from the Item Listing is refreshed to the new file's (an opening quantity you entered yourself is left alone).
If these books already hold entries dated inside the history you are importing (typed in, added from the bank feed, invoices, or your opening balance entry), the check lists them and stops: importing would count that money twice. Void or delete them, or move the cutover back to before them. If you are sure they are not in the file, tick Keep them and import anyway. Before replacing an earlier import, the confirmation names it (which import, when it ran, how far its history went) and warns in red when it came from a different system.
Starting only from a point in time
If you would rather not bring history at all, you can begin fresh instead: choose the essentials chart at setup, then enter each account's balance as of your start date on the opening balances screen. Your old system remains the archive for the years before.
After the import
- Open Reports and run a Profit and Loss and a Balance Sheet for a period you know well, and compare against the same reports in QuickBooks. They should read the same.
- A customer payment QuickBooks settled with a check instead of applying it to an invoice (a refund, or money paid out and repaid) arrives settled by that check, so the A/R Aging matches the Balance Sheet instead of listing the payment and the check against each other.
- Then connect your bank under Banking so new activity flows in from today forward. See Bank feeds and statements.
TaDa Books can also export back: your books can produce QuickBooks files at any time, so trying TaDa Books never locks you in. See Your data, backups and security.