When you switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, you may notice differences in how your books appear. Don’t worry, we’ll help you understand how your books were moved.
How your books move from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online
Terminology
QuickBooks Desktop uses different terms than QuickBooks Online for menu options, features, lists, items, transaction types, reports, and other labels.
Here's a list of the terminology differences between QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online:
| QuickBooks Desktop Term | QuickBooks Online Term |
|---|---|
| Bank Feeds | Online Banking / Bank Transactions |
| Documents / Doc Center | Attachments |
| Scheduled Payroll | Run Payroll |
| Unscheduled Payroll | Run Payroll Bonus Only |
| Payment Reminders | Reminders / Automatic invoice reminders |
| Income Tracker | All Sales |
| Bill Tracker | Vendors window |
| Upload & Review Bills | Receipts |
| Schedule Online Payment | Online Bill Pay |
| Forecast | Budgets |
| Budgets | Budgets |
| Reconcile | Reconcile |
| Inventory Parts | Inventory |
| Non-inventory Parts | Non-inventory |
| Assemblies | Bundles (Products & services) |
| Groups | Bundles (Products & services) |
| Other Charges | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Subtotals | Subtotal |
| Discounts | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Payments | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Services | Services |
| Jobs | Sub-customers Projects |
| Items | Products and services |
| Memorized transactions | Recurring transactions |
| Leads | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Price Levels | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Billing Rate Levels | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Other Names | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Vendors | Vendors (for all Vendors) Contractors (for Vendors tracked for 1099) |
| Fixed Asset Items | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Sales Reps (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Vendor Types (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Job Types (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Customer Messages (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Ship Via (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Vehicles (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Manage vehicles |
| Templates | Custom Form Styles |
| Add/Edit Multiple List Entries | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Customers | Customers |
| Employees | Employees |
| Classes | Classes (and Locations) |
| Chart of Accounts | Chart of Accounts |
| Customer Types (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Customer Types |
| Terms (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Terms |
| Payment Methods (Customer & Vendor Profile Lists) | Payment Methods |
| Memorized reports | Custom reports |
| Scheduled reports | Custom reports |
| Commented reports | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Custom reports | Custom reports (QuickBooks Online Advanced) |
| Company Snapshot | Business Snapshot |
Job & Item Estimates vs Actuals | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Bills | Expenses Bills Vendor Credits |
| Credit Card Charges | Expenses Credit Card Credits |
| Item Receipts | Expenses Bills |
| Sales Orders | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Credit Memos | Credit Memos Refund Receipts Delayed Credits |
| Batch Invoices | Batch transactions (QuickBooks Online Advanced) |
| Receipt Management | Receipts |
| Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand | Inventory Quantity Adjustment |
| Make General Journal Entries | Journal Entries |
| Make Deposits | Bank Deposits |
| Transfer Funds | Transfer |
| Enter Statement Charges | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Statements | Statements |
| Estimates | Estimates |
| Invoices | Invoices |
| Receive Payments | Receive Payments |
| Sales Receipts | Sales Receipts |
| Checks | Checks |
| Purchase Orders | Purchase Orders |
| Pay Bills | Pay Bills |
| Undeposited Funds | Undeposited Funds Payments to deposit |
| Use Register (For Banks/Accounts) | View Register |
| Edit > Preferences | Settings (gear) > Account and settings Settings (gear) > Payroll settings |
| My Company | Settings (gear) > Account and settings |
| Weekly Timesheet | Time Entries (If you have the Time tab) Weekly Timesheet (if you don't have the Time tab) |
| Time / Enter Single Activity | Time Entries (If you have the Time tab) Single Time Activity (if you don't have the Time tab) |
| Calendar | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Set Up Users | Manage Users |
| To Do List | Tasks (QuickBooks Online Advanced) |
| Reminders | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Letters | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
| Customer Groups | Not available in QuickBooks Online |
Features
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't Move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Budgets • Budgets are only available in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. • Only Profit and Loss budget types will copy to QuickBooks Online. |
|
| Inventory • Inventory is only available in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. • QuickBooks Online recalculates your inventory based on First-In, First-Out method. • QuickBooks Online doesn't support units of measure for inventory items. |
|
| Multi-Currency • Multi-Currency is only available in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. • Multi-currency preferences will import to QuickBooks Online. |
Multi-Currency • Transactions with 3 different currency types won't copy to QuickBooks Online. |
| Payroll • Check out What to do after you move to QuickBooks Online for more info. • Paychecks will copy as regular checks. • QuickBooks Online copy's the current year's paycheck information as lump sums. • Liability refunds, adjustment transactions, and opening balance transactions that affect accounts copy to journal entries. • Employee addresses copy over. You might need to fix some addresses. Addresses for states outside supported states (such as PR, AS, VI) will be left blank. • Date of birth • Gender • Social Security Number • Direct deposit account numbers • Bank names • Routing numbers • Employee bank info (for Direct Deposit) |
Payroll • If it doesn't come over, you'll need to enter past year-to date payroll info for each employee. • Once you setup your payroll in QuickBooks Online, you can create paychecks. • The details behind the transactions don’t convert. For example, the payroll item breakdown and employee year-to-date numbers. |
| Price Levels | |
| Sales Tax • Sales tax won't copy for all transactions. Some taxes will copy as journal entries. |
|
| Write Letters | |
| QuickBooks Payments • You'll need to unlink your Payments account from your Desktop file and relink the account to QuickBooks Online after you convert. |
|
| Mileage Tracking • You'll need to manually add previous mileage into QuickBooks Online. Learn how to track mileage in QuickBooks Online. |
Items
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Assemblies • Assembly items are inventory items made from other inventory items. • Assemblies move as Bundles for sales transactions. • All components of assemblies copy for purchase transactions. • Each item of the assembly appears on a detail line when you view the transactions. • Bundle items aren't tracked as inventory in QuickBooks Online. | |
| Discounts • Discounts for early payments move as credit memos. They're applied to a customer's outstanding balance. • Discounts taken from vendors for early payment of bills move as vendor credits. They're applied to a vendor's outstanding balance. | |
| Groups • Group items move as Bundles. • Zero amount lines are at the start and end of where the group item was. You can see which items were part of the group. • The top line shows the group name. The bottom line shows the group description. • Group total will show on the last line of the invoice in the Description field. | |
| Payroll Items |
Lists
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't Move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Chart of Accounts • For security reasons, bank account numbers and notes won't move to QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online has an additional level of account type called Detail type. QuickBooks Online will move your accounts and assign them detail types. You can change this later if you like. |
|
| Customers and Jobs Note: Jobs move to QuickBooks Online as Projects. Some Job fields like email and Bill to address aren't moved. Projects in QuickBooks Online don't support custom fields or 3rd app integration yet. • Your jobs move to sub-customers. • Customer Name • Company Name • Mr./Ms. • First Name • Middle initial (M.I.) • Last Name • Phone • FAX • Alt Ph. • Customer E-Mail • Terms • Customer Bill to Address (except Note) • Customer Ship to Address (except Note) • Tax code/item • Preferred Payment Method • Note (up to 4000 characters) |
Customers and Jobs • Inactive status (this status remains as long as there are no unbilled charges moved) • Contact • Alt. Contact • Customer Type • Rep • Price Level • Custom Fields • Account • Credit Limit • Job Status • Start Date • Projected End • End Date • Job Description • Job Type • Job Bill to address • Job Ship to address • Job E-Mail • Credit Card Info |
| Custom Fields in Lists | |
| Inactive Items • Inactive accounts, customers, or vendors move. If they have an open balance, they become active. • If there isn't a balance tied to a name, it will move as inactive (deleted). |
|
| Memorized Transactions | |
| Other Names • QuickBooks Online doesn't have an Other Names list. • Other Names in QuickBooks Desktop move as vendors. |
|
| Reminders | |
| Scheduled Transactions Recurring Transactions in QuickBooks Online • QuickBooks Online Plus, Advanced, and Essentials support recurring transactions. • Scheduled transactions in QuickBooks Desktop move as Recurring transactions in QuickBooks Online. |
Scheduled Transactions • QuickBooks Online Simple Start doesn't support recurring transaction templates. To avoid errors, you'll have to delete all scheduled transactions and templates in QuickBooks Desktop before you import to Simple Start. |
| To Do | |
| Terms • In QuickBooks Desktop, a job can't have its own terms. It gets the terms from its parent. • In QuickBooks Online, the equivalent to a job (a sub-customer) can have terms. You can edit the terms later to make them different from those of the parent. |
|
| Vendors • Vendor Name • Company Name • Mr./Ms. • First Name • M.I. • Last Name • Phone • FAX • Terms • Print on Check as • Address • AccountTax |
Vendors • Contact • Alt. Contact • Note • Status • Vendor Type • Credit Limit • Custom Fields • Alt. Contact • Alt Ph. • 1099 ID |
Preferences
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't Move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Closing Date Password | |
| Layout Customization • Your logos will move | Layout Customization • Custom templates won't move. |
| Shortcut List • Your shortcut list and icon bar settings from QuickBooks Desktop won't move to QuickBooks Online. • QuickBooks Online has its own keystroke shortcuts. In any window, press Ctrl+Alt+? (or Ctrl+Option+? on Mac) to see the shortcut menu. | |
| Users and Permissions • Existing users don't automatically have access to QuickBooks Online. They need to be invited from QuickBooks Online to gain access. |
Reports
QuickBooks Online doesn't have the same reports as QuickBooks Desktop.
Accrual basis reports in QuickBooks Online will match your reports in QuickBooks Desktop. Cash basis reports may not match.
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't Move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Audit Trail | |
| Memorized Reports | |
| Reconcile • All reconciled transactions in the register will have an R in the cleared column in QuickBooks Online. • Cleared transactions will have a C in the cleared column in Quickbooks Online. |
Transactions
| Moves to QuickBooks Online | Doesn't Move to QuickBooks Online |
|---|---|
| Bills, Bill Payments, and Bill Credits • The Bill received preference doesn't move to QuickBooks Online. • A bill discount in QuickBooks Desktop moves to a Vendor credit in QuickBooks Online. • The address on bill payment checks is replaced by the Vendor address on your Vendor list. • Bill payments made by credit card move to bill payments in QuickBooks Online. | |
| Credit Card Charges • Credit card charges in QuickBooks Desktop convert to Expenses in QuickBooks Online. | |
| Estimates • Your estimates in QuickBooks Desktop will move to QuickBooks Online. • Active estimates are marked as Closed. • Inactive estimates are marked as Rejected. • Estimates used for progress invoicing won't link to the invoices you created in Desktop. | |
| Finance Charges • Your finance charge invoices move to invoices in QuickBooks Online. • You can run an open invoice report to see which customers are overdue. Manually add finance charges to appear on the customer's next invoice. | |
| Invoices • Logos will move. • The PO No field will move to Custom Field 1. • Sales Rep will move to a Custom Field. | Invoices • Subtotals don't move but are included in the Description field. • Progress Invoices (invoices based on estimates) and their extra fields don't move. • Other and Other Customer custom fields don't move. |
| Item Receipts • Item receipts convert to Bills. | Item Receipts • The switch removes the link between bills and Purchase Orders. • Open POs won't reflect items received. • The PO will need to be linked to the Bill to reflect items received. |
| Journal Entries • You may see some transactions like checks and invoices move as journal entries. This only happens if: - Tax rates were entered as flat rates (0.00) instead of perecentages. - The original transaction can't be created again. | Journal Entries • Billable statuses don't move. You can't make a journal entry billable in QuickBooks Online. |
| Pending Sales | |
| Purchase Orders • The switch removes the link between bills and Purchase Orders. • Open POs won't reflect items received. • The PO will need to be linked to the Bill to reflect items received. | |
| Reconcile • Your past reconciliation reports don't move to QuickBooks Online. | |
| Reimbursable Expenses • Reimbursable expenses and unbilled time will move as billable expenses in QuickBooks Online. • QuickBooks Online has billable expenses which are similar to reimbursable expenses in QuickBooks Desktop. • In QuickBooks Online, you specify the markup percentage when you create the purchase instead of the invoice. |