Haven’t migrated yet? Review our article on Converting your QuickBooks Desktop data to QuickBooks Online using Dataswitcher.
Although we try to make the data conversion as comprehensive as possible, there are still a few tasks you'll need to perform before you start using QuickBooks Online. It's best to complete these as soon as possible before you make any changes to the data or enter new transactions.
In this article, you'll learn how to:
- Enter your company information and fiscal start month
- Check your data by comparing reports
- Turn on sales tax
- Reconcile your bank and credit card accounts
Enter your company information and fiscal start month
Step 1: Enter company information
- Go to Settings ⚙ and select Account and settings.
- Select the Company tab.
- Enter your company and contact information.
- Update or verify the email addresses to ensure billing communications and customer communications are delivered correctly.
- Enter the email address in the Company email box where you would like to receive the monthly invoices for your QuickBooks Online subscription.
- If you do not want to use the Company email address for your customers to contact you, enter the email address in the Customer-facing email box that you want your customers to associate with your business.
- Select Save.
Step 2: Set fiscal start month
- Select the Advanced tab.
- In the Accounting section in the dropdown menu to the right of First month of fiscal year, select the first month of your fiscal year.
- Select Save in that section, then Done.
Check your data by comparing reports
We suggest you compare the reports listed below in QuickBooks Online and in your Desktop file to ensure that your data was transferred correctly.
To verify your reports, run the reports by This Fiscal Year or This Year in QuickBooks Online:
- Balance Sheet Report
- Trial Balance
- A/R Aging Summary
- A/P Aging Summary
- Profit and Loss
Turn on sales tax
It’s important that Sales Tax be turned on in QuickBooks Online and be set up with the correct CRA Business Number and filing frequency before you start using it.
Note: You can skip these steps if your business isn’t registered for Sales Tax.
- In QuickBooks Online, go to Taxes and select Sales tax (Take me there).
- Follow the prompts to turn on the Sales Tax for your province.
Note: Be sure to correctly select your home province; this cannot be changed or corrected afterwards. - Enter your CRA Business number and Filing frequency.
Note: Set your Accounting method to Accrual unless your accountant has told you otherwise.
Reconcile your bank and credit card accounts
It’s critical that you complete this step before connecting your bank and/or credit card accounts to online banking.
Since you haven’t yet performed a bank reconciliation in QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Online assumes that no bank transactions have been reconciled. You’ll need to tell QuickBooks Online to mark all transactions up to the conversion date as reconciled, so that it only considers future transactions for reconciliation:
- Go to Settings ⚙ and select Reconcile.
- Select the relevant bank account from the dropdown menu, then select Reconcile Now. A Start Reconciling box displays.
- Enter your last reconciliation date in the Statement ending date and set cleared Balance as it was on your last reconciliation in the Ending Balance field.
- Leave the rest of the form blank and select OK. A list of transactions displays.
- Select the top checkmark boxes to select all transactions in the list. If the data is in two columns, make sure you’ve selected all transactions in both columns. Identify and uncheck transactions that are still uncleared. When the difference is Zero that means you have completed these steps successfully.
- Select Finish Now.
Note: It's important to repeat this process for all bank and credit card accounts in QuickBooks Online.