With the May 2027 end-of-support date for QuickBooks Desktop getting closer, I've been talking to a lot of accounting firms about how they're planning migrations for their client portfolios.
The actual migration tools seem fine — it's the export cleanup that everyone's struggling with. QBD exports come out with account numbers embedded in the account name strings, sub-accounts nested with colons, and debit/credit signs that don't match what Xero or Sage expects. I've heard firms say they spend 15-20 hours per client just cleaning up the export in Excel before they can even attempt an import.
For a firm with 50-100 clients on Desktop, that's potentially thousands of hours of manual work before the deadline.
Has anyone found a decent workflow for this? The free conversion tools seem to have pretty high error rates from what I've heard.
I'm working on a tool to automate the cleanup — handling the embedded account numbers, colon-nested hierarchies, sign convention mismatches, and trial balance validation. It's called LedgerTransit (https://ledgertransit.com) — still in early development, and I'm looking for firms willing to share their pain points to help shape what gets built first.
Curious how others are handling this. Migrating one at a time or in batches? And which destination platform are you finding easiest?
