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JBrown1
Level 2

How do I convert a PDF format file into a QBO file?

 
4 Comments 4
Rochelley
Level 8

How do I convert a PDF format file into a QBO file?

Hi @JBrown1 ,

 

Could you be a little more specific about what you're attempting to do?  At the outset, I would say converting a PDF file to a QBO file can't be done, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question.

JBrown1
Level 2

How do I convert a PDF format file into a QBO file?

Hello,

I have a client who receives PDF documents that summarize rent and expense data every month.  It would be helpful to be able to convert the data into a format acceptable by QuickBooks so that the data can be utilized there.

 

  1. Are there any apps that can be used to facilitate this conversion?  I don't believe this would be large volume of data, and the apps that I read about were quite expensive for this purpose.
  2. Will I need to convert the data from PDF into a .csv or .xls format first?

Hopefully this clarifies my question a bit more. Thank you.

 

Rochelley
Level 8

How do I convert a PDF format file into a QBO file?

Any data that appears on any file type other than .csv would have to be converted to .csv first.  That is not an easy task to do automatically.  My company has PowerPDF Advanced which is a very expensive PDF software that is supposed to be able to convert PDF to Excel or Word using OCR.  In my opinion, it does a lousy job.  The OCR recognition is so bad that I spend more time "fixing" all of the mistakes in the Excel sheet than it would have taken me to enter the data into a brand new excel sheet in the first place.

 

And you would have to edit the resulting converted file anyways because there are required headings that you must use in your .csv data file in order to map correctly to the Quickbooks fields.  They must be exact or the import will fail.

 

Is there any reason you can't get the file that your client used to make the PDF from?  Normally, PDF's are always created in some other native software first and only converted to PDF for ease of transport to others.  What application did your client use to create the PDF?  Could they use that application and create an excel file instead?  That might be a good place to start.

 

If that is not an option then I would suggest you just make your own excel sheet for data within a time frame and type the data you see on the PDF into the sheet, save it as a .csv, and then do the import into QBO.  When you go to do the import, there are is a good "import guide" and a preview of what your headings need to be to match the fields in QBO.  You would have to create separate .csv files for each type of data that you want to import.  i.e. Customers, Suppliers, Chart of Accounts, Products & Services, Invoices and Bills.

 

There is also a good third party app I've had great success with in the past which imports all of your transactions into QB with ease.  But the starting point is still an excel spreadsheet.  The reason I like this one is because it is a one-time fee and not a monthly subscription.  You buy it, you own it.  Here's a link to their site:

https://www.transactionpro.com/pricing/?from=website

 

There's also another one QB recommends right inside the QBO app - https://c15.qbo.intuit.com/app/qboAppCard?shortName=excel%20transactions

This does the same thing as the one above, but the starting point is still an excel spreadsheet.  The difference between this one and the one above is that this one requires a monthly subscription fee.

 

Best of luck to you!

Fiat Lux - ASIA
Level 15

How do I convert a PDF format file into a QBO file?

@JBrown1 

Try some free conversion app in the market to get the XLS/CSV files. Then consider a 3rd party importer tool as mentioned by Rochelley.

https://transactionpro.grsm.io/qbo

Use promo code 20PERCENTOFF at checkout, valid until April 30th, 2020.

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