Move your books to QuickBooks or Xero

HQ can set up your books in QuickBooks Online or Xero for you. You download one ZIP of files, import them in order, and check the result against a sheet we include. Nothing in HQ changes, and you can keep using it while you move.

On a small test book, with two open invoices, two open bills and two items entered by hand, the move took about 20 minutes in QuickBooks Online or Xero. Both tied to the cent. A larger book has not been timed.

Use a new QuickBooks company or Xero organisation, or one with no entries yet, on a plan that includes bills, and multicurrency if you hold foreign items.

Download the kit

1. Go to Ledger › Accounting › Move to QuickBooks or Xero.
2. Choose QuickBooks Online or Xero.
3. Pick the Move date. Only month ends are offered, because that is the one date both systems can start from. The screen shows the day your new system starts, which is the day after.
4. Read what the kit holds: accounts, customers, suppliers, products and services, and your open invoices and bills with their totals.
5. Select Download the QuickBooks Online kit or Download the Xero kit.

If the screen shows a message instead of the totals, your open documents differ from Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable by more than 5 cents at that date, and the download is switched off. The message names the account and the difference. Choose another month end, or correct the difference, and try again.

A difference of 5 cents or less travels with the kit. It stays on the new system's clearing account, which ends at that amount rather than zero, and the guide and the check sheet say so.

To enter by hand

Open invoices and bills in another currency are not imported, and neither is one that has been overpaid, which the new system enters as a credit. The screen lists each one under To enter by hand, with the customer or supplier, the number, the date, the amount in its own currency, and why. Their value is already inside the totals the kit sets up. The guide gives you each one as its own step, with the figures filled in.

What happens next

Open 00-READ-ME-FIRST.pdf in the ZIP. It is a checklist written for your books: your year end, your figures and your file names. Work from top to bottom and tick each box as you go. You can tick them on screen or print it. For what the steps look like, see Move your books to QuickBooks Online and Move your books to Xero.

The last thing you check against is 08-check-sheet.csv, which shows your balances at the move date as your new system should now read them. Each guide also prints those figures beside the step that checks them.

The ZIP also holds your general ledger and the PDFs of your open bills and invoices, so the paperwork behind each balance travels with you. The check sheet names any document it could not include. Keep it all with your records.

You can also reach this screen from Settings › Account › Delete my account and data, so you can take a kit before you delete anything.