In a recent article, I asked readers to submit stories of their migration experiences from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online. We have begun receiving those stories and will publish them regularly over the next few months.
These stories allow our readers to share their good and bad migrations, emphasizing any issues they may have encountered and how they were resolved.
Some stores will be shorter, and some will be longer, depending on how successful or messy the migration may have gotten.
Our first migration story comes from Carol Taavola. Carol owns Excellence in Bookkeeping, LLC, in Harland, WI, USA. She is also a Certified ProAdvisor in QuickBooks (Advanced) Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and QuickBooks Payroll.
Carol told Insightful Accountant that her most recent migration began two to three months ago. She said, "I have been with the client for 3-4 years, and their data is healthy. The file went back to 2006, and the client 'wanted it all.'"
Carol's client used Enhanced Desktop Payroll for their payroll processing and also had sales tax but no physical inventory.
Before the planned migration, Carol attended various webinars and podcasts and viewed several videos on migrating to QBO from Desktop. She told us that Intuit and other ProAdvisor educators, including Hector Garcia, created some of the materials she reviewed.
Having done all this study, Carol was confident in the process despite this being her first migration. However, Carol had the forethought to let her client know that... "migrations are not always 'cut and dried' and that something could go wrong."
If this were my story, I would tell the client, "Don't forget; my name is Murphy,' and Murph's Law applies to migrations."
Of course, Carol's name isn't 'Murphy,' so she wouldn't tell her client that. Nevertheless, she did forewarn her clients that things might not go as smoothly as they were made out to be in those webinars, podcasts, and videos.
Kudos to Carol for being upfront with her client.
In case something didn't go as expected, Carol gave herself a little extra time and planned the migration between pay periods. She also made certain that there were no future-dated transactions.
Carol thought all the guardrails were in place for the migration since the QuickBooks Desktop data file was in pristine condition, as it fully verified without issue.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as smoothly as Carol had hoped for. She said, "Intuit's conversion tool (and method) was horrible."
The actual steps for using the migration tool seemed unclear and different from those discussed in the various trainings she had taken.
When it came down to it, the migration tool didn't work as promoted, so she had to contact customer support.
Even though the general ledger matched to the penny, none of the client's past payroll data migrated into the QBO Payroll Center. She had to work with the migration support team to resolve the payroll data problems.
Another problem she had was with the Sales Tax Center. During conversion, the migration windows never allowed her to set up sales tax. Intuit's migration support didn't have an answer as to why the data appeared to be missing; however, almost "out of the blue," the sales tax information finally appeared.
So, while the new QBO data appears to now be up to par, the process wasn't really finalized until around the first of July, almost 1-1/2 months after it started in mid-May.
Insightful Accountant would like to thank Carol for allowing us to share her migration story with you. We would also like to acknowledge Hector Garcia, CPA, who Carol mentioned in this story as a valuable member of the ProAdvisor Community.
Just because we have started publishing these stories doesn't mean that we have stopped accepting them. If you have an interesting QBD to QBO migration story, good or bad, head over to our short survey page to submit your encounter(s).
Disclosures
As used herein, QuickBooks®, QuickBooks Desktop, and QuickBooks Online refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit® Inc., a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.
This article's source material was initially obtained via survey data from Carol Taavola. Any other names referenced here are provided solely for informational purposes.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. No one has paid Insightful Accountant or the author any remuneration regarding this feature. The article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
Note: Registered Trademark ® and other registration symbols (such as those used for copyrighted materials) have been eliminated from this publication's articles for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they might appear or be repeated. We attempt to credit such trademarks or copyrights within our related footnotes and disclosures.