Post-conversion checks for getting started with QuickBooks Online

If you aren't currently the primary administrator, you'll need to be invited. When you receive an email inviting you to become the Primary Administrator, select the Accept link in the email and sign in using your QuickBooks Online credentials.

Although we make the data conversion as comprehensive as possible, there are still a few tasks you need to perform before you start using QuickBooks Online on a day-to-day basis.

This document explains what you need to do. It’s best to take care of these jobs as soon as possible, and certainly before you make other changes to the data or begin entering new transactions.

To finalise the data and get QuickBooks ready for day-to-day use, you need to do these tasks:

• Check and fully review converted data
• Confirm company settings
• Confirm VAT settings
• Clean up VAT
• Tidy bank reconciliations
• Linking Payments/Credits to open invoices
• Remove Intuit Data Services user from your QuickBooks Online account

This document explains how to perform each of these tasks.

Before you begin:

1. Make sure you have received an email inviting you to become the primary administrator of this QuickBooks Online account.
2. Select the Accept link in the email. It will take you to sign in to QuickBooks Online.
3. Sign in using your QuickBooks Online credentials.

Please note, if you created your own QuickBooks Online file, you are already the primary admin!

1. Checking your Data

Please follow these post-conversion steps to validate your data in QuickBooks Online.

Compare reports

Please review your data after the conversion process. It is your responsibility to verify the completeness and accuracy of all converted data.

Compare your (printed) previous software (Sage/Kashflow/Xero/QuickBooks Desktop/etc.) reports with the QuickBooks Online reports set out below to ensure the conversion was successful and accurate:

Note: Please be sure to run your reports on an Accrual basis when checking the balances from previous software to Online - even if you currently work on a cash basis. This will ensure accurate balances are shown and confirm the accuracy of the data migration.

• Balance Sheet Report
• Trial Balance - All dates
• Customer Balance Summary - All dates
• Supplier Balance Summary - All dates
• VAT Summary Report for the most recently VAT period
• Any other reports you’d like to check

VAT Notes

In the Trial Balance report, if you have completed a filing but have not yet made or received payment for that filing before you moved to QuickBooks Online, the amount will be moved from the A/P or A/R account in previous software to a new suspense account in QuickBooks Online. This is due to a difference in the way that the two systems track VAT.
Any current VAT exceptions will not be captured in your next filing. If you currently have any exceptions in your previous software data then please contact your QuickBooks Online support team.

Note: If you had any un-cleared/non-reconciled transactions in your previous software file, you will need to untick them in the QuickBooks Online reconciliation report to ensure all the transactions match.

2. Confirm company settings

Why do this?

Although we’re able to move your accounting figures into QuickBooks, we don’t carry over information like company name, address and email details.

Here’s how to confirm the company settings:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Accounts and settings.
2. In the Company tab, enter your company and contact information here.
3. Update the email addresses to ensure billing and customer communications are handled correctly.
   1. Enter your email address for QuickBooks billing into the Company email box. Intuit will send monthly invoices to this email address for your QuickBooks subscription.
   2. If you do not want to use the Company email address for your customers to contact you, then enter the email address in the Customer-facing email box that you want your customers to associate with your business.
4. Select Save to save these changes.

3. Confirm VAT settings

Why do this?

It’s important that QuickBooks Online is set up with the correct VAT registration number and filing frequency before you and your client start using it. You can skip this step if your business isn’t registered for VAT.

How to confirm VAT settings:

1. Go to Taxes and select VAT (Take me there).
2. Select the Edit VAT dropdown and select Edit Settings.
3. Enter Tax registration date.
4. Make sure How often do you submit a VAT return to HMRC? is correct and change Which VAT accounting scheme do you use? if required.
5. Select Save to save these settings.

4. Clean up VAT

Why do this?

Because you have never filed VAT using QuickBooks Online before, QuickBooks Online assumes that all VAT recorded in the accounts is now due. This means the VAT balance shown in QuickBooks is wrong. Enter the date of the last VAT filing from your QuickBooks Desktop file. This will ensure the VAT balance shows correctly and that future VAT returns are accurate.

How to clean up VAT:

1. Go to Taxes, select VAT (Take me there), then select Prepare Return.
2. Enter the following details into the Prepare VAT Return screen:
   1. Set Start Date as the start date of the conversion period.
   2. Set End Date as the last day of the period covered by the most recent VAT return.
3. Select the Mark as Filed button, then Continue to confirm that the VAT returns have been filed up to the To Date.
4. You’ll be taken to the VAT screen. Now you need to enter a reverse journal entry to ensure your current balance is correct.
   1. Go to Transactions and select Chart of accounts (Take me there).
   2. From the Chart of Accounts, choose VAT Suspense account, select Account history.
   3. Find the VAT transaction you just created, then select Edit.
   4. You’ll see the Journal Entry screen. At the bottom, select Reverse.
   5. A new VAT Suspense line will be added to the list. If you like, you can type a note into the Description column to show that this was a Post System Migration Task or similar.
5. Select Save and new to save these changes.
   The VAT balance shown in QuickBooks should now be correct, ensuring that future VAT returns are accurate.

5. Tidy bank reconciliations

Why do this?

Because you have never used QuickBooks Online to perform bank reconciliation, QuickBooks Online assumes that no bank transactions have been reconciled. You need to tell QuickBooks to mark all transactions up to the conversion date as reconciled, so it only considers future transactions for reconcilement.

Follow these steps to tidy bank reconciliations:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Reconcile.
2. Choose the relevant bank account from the drop-down. Enter the Ending balance and Ending date, then select Start reconciling.
3. You will see a list of transactions. Select all transactions in the list. If the data is in two columns, make sure you’ve selected all transactions in both columns. Then find and uncheck transactions that are still uncleared. When the difference is Zero that means you have completed these steps successfully.
4. Select Finish Now.
5. It is important to repeat this process for all bank accounts in QuickBooks Online.

It is important to repeat this process for all bank accounts in QuickBooks Online.

6. Linking payments/credits to open invoices

Why do this?

Because the transactions downloaded in QuickBooks did not link the invoices with their respective payments. If you open your A/R and A/P ageing reports in QuickBooks Online, you may notice names that have zero balances.

To resolve this, turn on automatically apply credits preference so you can easily link credits/payments to your open invoices. Follow these steps to turn on auto-apply credits:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Accounts and settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Select Edit in the Automation section.
4. Select Automatically apply credits, and then Save.

If you do not want to automatically apply all payments, you can individually create payments. This would have to be done on a name by name basis.

Getting QuickBooks help and support

Once you’ve performed the tasks described in this document, you can start using QuickBooks on a day-to-day basis.If you have any questions about any of these tasks - or any other aspect of QuickBooks Online - just contact the expert QuickBooks Online support team.