QuickBooks giving you a headache? Or maybe you’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard rather than do your accounting. Either way, switching to Xero Accounting will set you on your journey to an easy, and even enjoyable way to get your accounting done. Even if you are paying an accountant to do this for you, it will still require some input from you, the small business owner. We’ve worked with lots of small businesses in converting from QuickBooks to Xero. So we decided to post some useful tips on how to start, and carry out this process.
Step 1: Clean up your QuickBooks company file
Ok, so if you’re not an accountant, and you’ve been doing your own bookkeeping, chances are that you’ve made some “boo boo’s” in your books. QuickBooks is a very forgiving program. Meaning that it allows you enough freedom to hang your self…so to speak! DON’T WORRY…Even if your QuickBooks is a mess, you can still get useful information out of it and get it in shape to transfer to the easiest online accounting tool: Xero Accounting.
Here’s what to do:
Clean up your contacts, vendors, and other lists. Go through and merge, or archive the ones you don’t need. Whittle your customer and vendor lists down to only what you use now.
Next, go through your chart of accounts and do the same thing. Make sure your chart of accounts is up to date, accurate, and that there aren’t too many accounts that you’re not using.
Lastly, make sure all your transactions are entered into QuickBooks BEFORE you get the file converted. Whether that’s bank transactions, credit card transactions, or whatever else, just make sure they’re all in there. If you want the “extra credit”, reconcile your transactions with the “bank reconciliation” feature. This is not absolutely necessary, but will make future steps a bit easier.
Once you have done these things, go to Step 2 blog post (coming soon). If you need help along the way, just reach out to us and we’ll be happy to help!