Importing Information into QuickBooks
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Category: Import/Export
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He’s been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70′s, focusing on inventory and accounting software for small businesses. Charlie is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Look for Charlie’s articles in the QuickBooks and Beyond blog, as well as his California Wildflower Hikes blog.
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Ashleigh, when you say “subaccounts” do you mean the “subitem of” feature, where an item can be a subitem of another item? If that is the case, map the item name with a colon. That is, if item “DEF” is a subitem of item “ABC”, then add item ID as “ABC:DEF”
Note that the item “ABC” must ALREADY be in the list when you add “ABC:DEF”, and that the item “type” of “ABC” must be the same as “DEF”
Will I have to use an IIF to do that? When I go to put it into the Excel import template, I get an error for putting the colon in Product Name column.
Ashleigh, it works in the Advanced Excel Import just fine. I just double checked in my copy of Premier 2010 and it worked as I said.
What specific error message did you get? There may be some other issue.
If you add an item to your item list manually (in the “add item” window) that has a subitem, then Export it to Excel, you can see how QB handles this…
I just wasn’t using the Advanced Excel Importer. It works just fine now! Thanks!!
We use QB 2008 but the new accountant uses QB 2009 is there a conversion tool available to be able to take the data from QB 2009 back to QB 2008? I really can’t afford to upgrade right now.
Dana, you can try using the Data Transfer Utility (http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2008/05/review-data-transfer-utility/), but that would be a very lousy way to deal with it. There isn’t a good way to “downgrade” the file effectively on a regular basis.
The better approach would be if the Accountant were to use the 2009 Accountants Edition – and exchange information with you using the Accountant’s Copy procedure. This is the proper way to deal with these kinds of exchanges. If they have the 2009 Accountants Edition they can work with companies that have a 2008 or 2009 file without forcing the client to upgrade to 2008. Also, if you have an accountant who is part of the ProAdvisor program, they would have copies of each year of QuickBooks so they can work with you using the same version.
I am looking into updating from Quickbooks 2006 to a newer version for my boss. I am wondering if I can transfer or integrate the information in 2006 to the newer version easily, or if it is just not worth the trouble to upgrade?
Thanks!
Char: In most cases, moving your data from 2006 to a newer version is simple. It isn’t an “import” issue – you install the new version of QB and open the older company file, QB should convert the file to the new format easily and automatically. It sometimes doesn’t work that way – if you are making a really big jump in years or if your data has some accumulated damage internally, it might not convert. There are people that can help if you run into that situation.
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for writing this article. It’s very informative.
As you have mentioned various ways of importing data into QuickBooks, one of them is-
[Programming Interface
Intuit publishes a programming interface that you can download from the Intuit Developer Network web site. You will see this referred to as the “SDK”..]
I would like to know about “QuickBooks Web Connector (QBWC)”
Could you please answer my below questions?
1. Is it a programming interface?
2. Does is it support importing list of invoices?
Thanks & Regards,
Manohar.
Yes, you can use the QBSDK and the web connector to write programs that will import invoices. Not necessarily easy, but you can do it. I use the QBSDK to work with invoices, sales orders and estimates myself (I don’t use the web connector because I write desktop products).
The ODBC driver is built on top of the QBSDK.
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for your reply for my last query.
I want to integrate my Ruby on Rails web application with QuickBook Online Edition. I want to create customized template for time and expense invoice, like an invoice from Rails app. After that i want to import all entries from my rails app to QuickBook Online Account.
Please help me about to do the same. I want to know, How I will achieve this and how QuickBook SDK can support? Or Do you know any alternate ways to do it?
Thanks & Regards,
Manohar.
Manohar, I don’t work with QB Online, so I can’t help much there. Your options for interacting with QuickBooks are very limited, you have to use their SDK or possibly the IPP interface (I don’t know if that works with QBOE or not). Your best bet is to go to the Intuit Developer Network site and see what you can find there, both in the documentation (the SDK is free) and the support forums. http://developer.intuit.com/
My company made the move from MAS90 to QB 2010 Premier. The initial choice was to recreate the customer records. Now they want to import the data.
I can use IIF to transfer most of the information via a VFP program but we retain the customer CC information on file to make it easier to bill for orders. IIF does not have a format to import this to the customer record.
I downloaded the SDK8 and am looking at several sample programs but not sure how to go about adding the customers yet. I need to add new customers and possibly try and match to existing customers via Custom Field value.
Am I wasting my time or is this a possibility? Suggestions wanted.
Jon Black
Syncom Pharmaceuticals
System:
Visual Foxpro 9
QB 2010 Pre – multiuser – network install
QB SDK 8
Jonathan, reather than learning the intricacies of the SDK, particularly as they relate to Custom Fields, I would suggest looking at a ready made import tool. See my review of the Transaction Pro importer (which should work with lists and custom fields for you) at http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2010/01/importing-quickbooks-transactions-with-transaction-pro-importer/