Hi I appreciate your help and explanation, JaeAnnC

However, my experience is not matching yours.

Running the reports both in Accrual (which I have done from the beginning) does not solve the problem. I checked the dates to make sure I am doing parallel reports in QBO and my "new" QBD files.

When I go into numerous balance sheet accounts - e.g. asset accounts, accumulated depreciation, etc. - it is clear that transactions that are in QBO are missing from QBD, which makes the balances not match. 

It would have been nice if I could have been able to choose which dates to migrate to QBD bc I would have asked for only the dates since we originally uploaded to QBO, which was less than 2 yrs ago. (My client still has his QBD files from that time.)

My next idea, for anyone who is interested, is to get a trial of Advanced QBO and see if I can get and keep a backup from that.

Remember, this is all about having an archive of data if my client ever gets audited.

Very frustrating. 

thanks.