Importing from QuickBooks
If you’re moving from QuickBooks Online, you can bring over your customers, your products and services, and what clients still owe you. Only owners and admins can import. Open Settings, Business and press Import from QuickBooks, or use the link on an empty Clients page.
Export three reports from QuickBooks
In QuickBooks Online, export each of these to Excel:
- Customer Contact List, under Reports, Standard reports, Sales and customers.
- Product/Service List, in the same place.
- Open Invoices, under Reports, Standard reports, Who owes you.
PayPolka takes the Excel (.xlsx) file or a CSV, up to 2 MB each. Import the customers first. If you import open invoices before the customers, each client comes over with no contact.
Check, then import
Choose a file and press Check this file. PayPolka works out which report it is and shows how many records it will add, how many are already in PayPolka or have nothing to import, and anything worth a look, such as a customer with no email address. Nothing is added yet. Press Import, which says how many it will add (for example Import 12 customers), or Choose another file.
Importing the same file again adds nothing new, so it’s safe to run a file twice. Nobody is emailed during an import.
What comes over
Customers become clients, with the name, billing address, and payment terms. The first email address becomes the primary contact, with a phone number if there is one. A customer with no email comes over without a contact, and the check lists it so you can add one; a client needs a primary contact with an email before you can send invoices. Terms PayPolka offers (Due on receipt, Net 10, Net 15, Net 30) carry over. Anything else becomes Net 30, and the check says so. A QuickBooks sub-customer written as “Parent:Job” comes over as the parent client.
Products and services become items in your Price Book, with their name, description, and price.
Open invoices each become a sent invoice for what’s still owed, with one line that names the QuickBooks invoice number, its original amount, and the job if there was one. The issue and due dates come from QuickBooks, and reminders follow your usual schedule from there. Credits and journal entries on the report aren’t imported; the check lists them for you to settle by hand.
What doesn’t come over
- Invoice history line by line. QuickBooks can’t export it. Paid invoices stay in QuickBooks for your records.
- Saved cards and bank accounts. Clients who paid through QuickBooks Payments need to enter their card or bank account again here, on the invoice or with autopay.
- Invoice numbers. Numbering starts fresh in PayPolka. Each imported invoice keeps its QuickBooks number in its subject and line.
- Your books. PayPolka handles billing, getting paid, and what you spent. It doesn’t keep a ledger or bank feeds; your accountant gets a year-end package instead.