Converting Chart of Accounts from QuickBooks

How Do I...

Before you can convert QuickBooks data, each account listed in the QuickBooks chart of accounts must have a unique account number or ID. Sage 50 uses these numbers as Account IDs and they are required. The conversion process will give you the opportunity to create account IDs during the conversion. Tell me about reviewing account numbers.

After converting the company data, you can examine and update your chart of accounts in Sage 50 at any time.

To display and modify chart of accounts information, select Chart of Accounts from the Maintain menu. Sage 50 displays the Maintain Chart of Accounts window.

For detailed information on what and how chart of accounts fields are converted, see Chart of accounts field comparison list.

Retained Earnings Account

Sage 50 requires that you have a Retained Earnings account. Although QuickBooks creates this account for you when initially setting up your company, it is possible to remove it. If it is missing, you must re-add it to successfully convert to Sage 50. Otherwise, you will get an error when you try to convert to Sage 50.

To create a new Retained Earnings account in QuickBooks

Start QuickBooks and open your company.
From the Reports menu, select Company & Financial, then choose Balance Sheet Standard.

Displaying the balance sheet forces QuickBooks to search for a retained earnings account. If it cannot locate one, it will create a new one for you.
Close the report window, then try the conversion once again.

Other Equity Accounts

Your Retained Earnings account in QuickBooks will become a Retained Earnings account in Sage 50. All other equity accounts will be assigned an Account Type of "Equity - doesn't close". This means that your equity accounts will be assigned a type whose amounts will be carried forward from year to year (like common stock) and not zeroed out at year-end close. Sage 50 also provides an account type of "Equity - gets closed". These types of accounts will be zeroed out at year-end close, and their amounts will be moved to Retained Earnings. If you need to learn how to change your equity accounts, click the link below.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Accounts

If you set up vendors in QuickBooks, Sage 50 will require an accounts payable account. If you set up customers in QuickBooks, Sage 50 will require an accounts receivable account.

During the conversion, Sage 50 will prompt you to select default expense and sales accounts. The expense account selected will be assigned as the default for all vendors converted from QuickBooks. The sales account selected (typically an income account) will be assigned as the default for all customers converted from QuickBooks. After the conversion, you can assign unique defaults for each vendor and customer.

Non-Posting Accounts

QuickBooks lists non-posting accounts in its chart of accounts. These accounts do not impact the General Ledger and cannot be used in Sage 50. Therefore, they will not be converted.

Sub Accounts

Sub accounts are converted as regular accounts in Sage 50. Each account in the Sage 50 chart of accounts is unique. However, you can set up accounts that use department masking. What is department masking?

Other Accounts

Sub accounts of, descriptions, and bank numbers in QuickBooks are not converted to Sage 50.

Budget Information

Budget information for each QuickBooks account is not converted to Sage 50. However, you can easily set these up in Sage 50 after the conversion is complete. How do I set up budget information in Sage 50?

Account Balances

The current balance (at the time of the conversion) of each account listed in the General Ledger is converted as account beginning balances in Sage 50. Each account beginning balance is entered as of the day before the first period you chose to enter data during the conversion process.

Note: Sage 50 is unable to convert some transaction types for payroll and your balances may be off.

How do I check and correct balances?

IF YOU USE QUICKBOOKS PAYROLL: your general ledger balances most likely will not match, because Sage 50 does not convert payroll information. Tell me how to filter and print financials in QuickBooks that will help me match balances in Sage 50.