Great Plains to QuickBooks Data Conversion

Moving from Great Plains to QuickBooks is right for you if you’re trapped in a technological time capsule with Microsoft’s aging platform while watching your IT costs balloon with each passing year.

Great Plains often represents significant overengineering for businesses needing reliable financial reporting without the burden of maintaining a complex database architecture requiring specialized technical knowledge.

QuickBooks may be a better fit if you value ease of use, want more integration options with other business software, and prefer a cloud-based solution for remote access.

The first step to take before migrating from Great Plains to QuickBooks is to conduct a thorough assessment of your current accounting processes and data. This involves reviewing your chart of accounts, customer and vendor lists, and transaction history to determine what needs to be transferred.

Identify any custom reports, integrations, or workflows you currently use in Great Plains and determine how these can be replicated or adapted in QuickBooks. Cleaning up your data in Great Plains is crucial, as well as removing any outdated or unnecessary information to ensure a smoother migration process.

Create a detailed migration plan, including timelines, responsibilities, and contingencies. This plan should outline the steps for data extraction, transformation, and import, as well as strategies for minimizing disruption to your business operations during the transition.

Consider the timing of your migration carefully, aiming for a period of lower business activity if possible. Communicate the upcoming changes to all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and vendors, to manage expectations and prepare them for potential disruptions.

After migrating from Great Plains to QuickBooks, you should immediately verify the accuracy and completeness of your transferred data. This includes checking account balances, customer and vendor information, and recent transactions to ensure they match your records from Great Plains.

Run test transactions and reports in QuickBooks to confirm that everything functions as expected. Pay special attention to areas where you had custom processes or reports in Great Plains to ensure they’ve been adequately replicated or replaced in QuickBooks.

Provide comprehensive training to your team on using QuickBooks. This should cover basic navigation, data entry procedures, report generation, and any new workflows implemented during the transition.

Update any internal documentation or process guides to reflect the new system. This may include creating new standard operating procedures for tasks handled differently in QuickBooks than in Great Plains.

Review and adjust your chart of accounts if necessary to take advantage of QuickBooks’ features and reporting capabilities. Set up any additional integrations with other business software you plan to use with QuickBooks.

The system requirements for migrating to QuickBooks include a Windows 10 operating system or later for QuickBooks Desktop. For the server, Windows Server 2019 or later is recommended.

Your computer should have at least 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended) and 2.5 GB of available disk space for installation. A 2.4 GHz processor or faster is required, and multi-core processors are supported.

For optimal performance, a 1280×1024 screen resolution or higher is recommended. Internet Explorer 11 is required for certain features, and a high-speed internet connection is necessary for online services and features.

For QuickBooks Online, you’ll need a compatible web browser (such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge) and a stable internet connection. QuickBooks Online is accessible from various devices, including computers, tablets, and smartphones.

For Mac users, QuickBooks for Mac requires macOS Mojave (10.14) or later, with at least 2 GB of RAM (4 GB recommended) and 250 MB of available disk space.

The file format to use when transferring from Great Plains to QuickBooks is typically a combination of CSV (Comma Separated Values) and IIF (Intuit Interchange Format) files. CSV files are commonly used for exporting data from Great Plains due to their simplicity and compatibility with various systems.

To import into QuickBooks, you may need to convert some of these CSV files into IIF format, which is QuickBooks’ proprietary import format. QuickBooks provides templates for IIF files that you can use to structure your data correctly.

In some cases, you may also use Excel (.xlsx) files as an intermediate step to clean and format your data before importing it into QuickBooks. QuickBooks has built-in tools for importing Excel files, which can be helpful for certain types of data. For more complex migrations, you might need to use a combination of these formats, depending on the type of data being transferred and the specific requirements of your QuickBooks setup.

Yes, manually transitioning from Great Plains to QuickBooks presents significant technical and operational challenges that merit thorough consideration before proceeding.

The migration demands meticulous planning due to fundamental architectural differences between these disparate accounting platforms. These systems employ distinct data models and account hierarchies that do not naturally align, necessitating careful mapping and transformation protocols.

Given these complexities, many businesses choose to work with migration specialists who have experience in both Great Plains and QuickBooks to ensure a smooth and accurate transition.

The data that can be transferred from Great Plains to QuickBooksincludes a wide range of financial and operational information. This typically covers your chart of accounts, which forms the backbone of your accounting system.

Customer and vendor lists, including contact information and historical transactions, can be transferred. Inventory items, including quantities and values, can also be migrated to QuickBooks.

General ledger entries, including journal entries and account balances, can be transferred to keep your financial records intact. If you use job costing in Great Plains, this information can often be migrated to QuickBooks’s job costing features.

The data that can’t be transferred from Great Plains to QuickBooks includes certain system-specific settings and some types of customized information. For example, user-defined fields in Great Plains may not have direct equivalents in QuickBooks and might require manual recreation.

Certain types of complex financial instruments or specialized accounting methods used in Great Plains might not be fully supported in QuickBooks, especially if you’re moving to QuickBooks Online rather than Enterprise. This could include some advanced inventory valuation methods or multi-entity consolidation features.

The estimated turnaround time (TAT) for migrations from Great Plains to QuickBooks is typically between 2 to 4 weeks. This timeframe can vary significantly depending on the complexity of your accounting system and the volume of data being transferred.

For smaller businesses with straightforward accounting needs, the migration might be completed in as little as a week. Larger organizations with more complex financial structures, multiple entities, or large volumes of historical data may require several weeks or even months to complete the migration process.