Several months ago I wrote an article titled, "Hitch Your Wagons 'Pardner' for the Best Migration Yet." That article discussed the complexities of migrating from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online. Ever since then we've focused a lot on migration away from QuickBooks Desktop.
Intuit has been spending a lot of time, effort, energy and dollars for the last two-years (or so) on their big migration push from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.
I've even spent a lot of effort and time to give you alternatives to QuickBooks Desktop Pro/Pro-plus and QuickBooks Desktop Premier/Premier-plus, so much that I recently taught two one-hour webinars on the subject and have authored two 'Blue Papers' (aka: white papers) on the alternatives for Insightful Accountant's new premium content.
But a couple of years ago I wrote an 'App Aware' article on 'going the opposite direction'... migrating back to QuickBooks Desktop from QuickBooks Online. Let’s face it, for some people QuickBooks Online just doesn’t work.
Some QuickBooks users tried QBO, but they didn’t like it. Maybe those users tried it, it found that QBO simply didn’t do the job for them. Or some QBO users found that things running under QBO just didn’t yield the same results as when they ran under QB Desktop.
As a result, they've decided they want to go back to QuickBooks Desktop and take their QBO file with them.
While Intuit makes the process of moving (converting) from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online fairly painless, the same can’t be said for the reverse, especially since the demise of Windows 7. Many people are now using Windows 11, although some remain on Windows 10, both of which now use Microsoft Edge as the default browser since 'Internet Explorer' is now more, so the process doesn't work as well now as when it was using ‘Active X’ running under ‘Internet Explorer’.
The Intuit process for downgrading back to desktop makes Users go through an exhaustive process of preparing their QuickBooks Online data for export because there is an extensive list of data that doesn’t export (or doesn’t export as it should) from QBO to QuickBooks Desktop. Users may need to spend a considerable amount of time working on your QBO data to maximize the possibility that the download file which is exported by Intuit from QBO will be accurate when you import it. If you don't go through this exercise chances are the file will be wrong.
The actual process of download preparation can be lengthy depending on the size and complexity of your file. You then go through a series of steps to convert the file created into an actual QuickBooks Desktop Company file.
But I'm writing this article to remind you that there is an 'alternative' to migrating back to QuickBooks Desktop if QuickBooks Online simply wasn't "your cup of tea." There is an App called ’exportmybooks.com’, when I first wrote about this app you could find the App in the Intuit QuickBooks App Center, but no more... I wonder why?
Anyway, exportmybooks.com makes QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop conversion easy.
It is a secure, easy, and fast solution that will convert your QuickBooks Online data to QuickBooks Desktop (Pro/Premier) or QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise. Now when I first told you about this app it was still 'free' at the time... but now they offer the app at $199 per company file converted to QuickBooks Desktop (Pro/Premier), or $299 per company file converted to QuickBooks Enterprise. Both conversion types support versions since 2020. You even have an option to convert a QBO file back to QuickBooks for Mac.
Essentially these are the steps exportmybooks.com provides:
- exportmybooks.com is an app that directly connects to your QBO company file.
- It eliminates the need to go through Intuit's complicated export from QBO and import into QBD (or Mac).
- It ensures your QBO file is properly formatted to produce a QBD (or Mac) backup file.
- It converts your file information and then creates a QuickBooks Backup file (for QBD or Mac).
- It maintains your QBO file exactly as it was prior to the process starting, and
- Users can then restore that QuickBooks Backup file into the appropriate QuickBooks Desktop application.
For more details on how this app worked in my prior testing, check out my prior article in which I go through a step-by-step of taking an existing QBO file of my own back to QBD.
All indications are, ’exportmybooks.com’ makes QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop conversion a lot easier than the method Intuit offers to QBO Users. If you are thinking about returning from QBO to QBD, you should check out their website.
Disclosures:
Wagon Train (title graphic depiction) art has been adapted from the original works by David Sanders.
As used herein, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, and QuickBooks Desktop (Pro, Premier, Mac and Enterprise) refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc., a NASDAQ “INTU” publicly traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California (USA).
Other trade names used herein, including ’exportmybooks.com’, may be registered, trademarked, or otherwise held by their respective owners and are now acknowledged accordingly. They have been referenced for informational and educational purposes only.
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