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Move your lists to QuickBooks Online

by Intuit•1• Updated about 8 hours ago

Learn how to move your lists and import them to QuickBooks Online.

Move your lists (suppliers, customers, inventory, and chart of accounts) from a different QuickBooks Online company instead of creating them again. You can also save time when you set up items on your list all at once using Excel or CSV files.

If you need to import bank transactions too, don't do it manually. Link your bank account to QuickBooks Online to download and sort your transactions automatically.

Note: The Products and Services page isn’t available in the QuickBooks Ledger subscription tier.

Important: To protect your account security, make sure you are signed in as a Primary or Company admin.

  1. Go to Reports Icon image of the Reports menu. and select Standard reports (Take me there).
  2. Find and open the specific report you need:
    • Account List
    • Customer Contact List
    • Supplier Contact List
    • Product/Service List
      Note: You can search for keywords from the Type report name here â–Ľ dropdown and select the desired report, or select it from the appropriate sections given below.
  3. Select Customise, then select the Columns â–Ľ dropdown. Make sure your columns match the exact layout before exporting. You can do the following:
    • Select and uncheck the checkboxes next to the column headers you want to add and remove from the columns.
    • Drag the columns to reorder them.
Report TypeRequired Column Order & Layout
Account List• Account
• Account Name
• Detail type
• Description
• Total balance
Customer Contact List• Customer
• Customer full name
• Email
• Phone
• Website
• Bill street
• Bill city
• Bill state
• Bill zip
• Bill country
Supplier Contact List• Supplier
• Company
• Email
• Phone
• Website
• Bill street
• Bill city
• Bill state
• Bill zip
• Bill country
Product/Service List• Product/Service
• Type
• Memo/Description
• Purchase price
• Sales price
• Quantity on hand

Important: QuickBooks Online uses FIFO (First-In, First-Out) costing method. You can import items with Qty on hand with QuickBooks Online. This creates a hard inventory starting value transaction dated on the day of the import.

Note: You won’t be able to edit or log inventory impact prior to this date.
  1. Select Apply changes, then select Save As.
  2. Update the Report name if needed, then select Save.
  3. Select the export icon , then select Export to Excel.
  4. Select the download icon on your browser. Then select the exported sheet for it to open in Microsoft Excel.
    Note: Remove the header info (company name and report title) so that your column headers sit on row 1 and save the sheet.

Before you move on, review the following:

  • Import sequence order: Always import your Chart of Accounts first. Your products and services must map to existing income and expense accounts. If you import items before accounts, the import will fail.
  • Inventory tracking: When you move your data, your inventory is locked on the migration date. This also means you can't change your inventory history before that date.

Once your files are cleaned and saved, you can load them directly into your new company file.

For detailed, step-by-step field mapping instructions for each list type, refer to our specialised guides:

Tip: If you want to see how your Excel files should look, you can download these sample templates: 

You will likely hit a conflict warning on default system items like Hours or Services that QuickBooks Online creates automatically.

Note: To fix this, simply uncheck these specific rows in the import wizard page. The rest of your new list items will import completely fine without them.

You can get an error that states that your income or expense account doesn't exist when you import your product and services. This means that item is looking for an account name that isn't on your Chart of Accounts yet.

Note: To fix this, you need to cancel the current item that you’re trying to import. Import your Chart of Accounts first, or add the missing account to your Chart of Accounts. Then try to import the item again.

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