Convert Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting files (overview)

QB Issue Resolution:

With the QuickBooks Conversion Tool, you can convert Microsoft Small Business Accounting and Office Accounting files to QuickBooks company files. The conversion process copies your Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting data to a new QuickBooks company, leaving your original Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting data files unchanged.

To do this task

1. Make sure that you meet thesystem requirements for the QuickBooks Conversion Tool.
   • 500 MHz Intel Pentium II or equivalent (1 GHz recommended).
   • Windows 2000/XP.
   • 256 MB of CPU memory (512 MB recommended).How to check your RAM
     1. Click the Windows Start button, right-click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties.
     2. In the System Properties window, click the General tab.

        The RAM is displayed in the lower right hand corner.

   • An appropriate amount of virtual memory based on your RAM size.How to configure virtual memory
     1. Click the Windows Start button, right-click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties.
     2. In the System Properties window, click the Advanced tab.
     3. In the Performance section, click the Settings button.
     4. Click the Advanced tab.
     5. Click the Change button.
     6. In the Paging file size for selected drive section, do one of the following:
        • Click Custom Size, then set Initial size to at least the recommended minimum. You can find the recommended minimum in the lower half of the window.

          or

          Click System managed size.

     7. When you’re done, click Set to save your changes.
     8. Click OK in each window to close it.
     9. Reboot the computer.
   • About 30 MB of hard disk space for the conversion utility and at least 2 GB of free space for use during the conversion.

   In addition, the following must be installed on the local computer:

   • Supported version of QuickBooks QuickBooks must be licensed and registered.
   • Small Business Accounting or Office Accounting.

     The Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting files that you want to convert must be located on your local computer. You cannot convert a Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting company that is backed up as a ZIP file.

2. Prepare your Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting files for conversion.
3. Open QuickBooks.
4. If QuickBooks isn’t already in single-user mode,switch to it.

   In single-user mode, only one person at a time can access and work with your company file.

   To do this task

   1. If other people are working with the company file, ask them either to close the file or exit QuickBooks.
   2. Go to the File menu and click Switch To Single-User Mode.

   See also

   • More about single-user mode
5. Update QuickBooks to the latest release orturn off automatic updates.
   1. Go to the Help menu and click Update QuickBooks.
   2. Click the Options tab and make sure that Automatic Update is set to No.
6. Turn off screen savers and close all applications, including QuickBooks, Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting, and memory managers. This will speed up the conversion process and avoid errors.
7. Download the conversion tool:
   1. Open a Web browser and visit  http://www.quickbooksdirect.com/convert

      Or, accountants can visit  http://accountant.intuit.com/convert.

   2. Complete the form and click Submit.
   3. Click Download.
   4. Save the file to a location you can find again easily.

   The download size is approximately 30MB.

8. When the file finishes downloading, double-click it to install the conversion tool.
9. When the tool is installed, click the Windows Start button, go to All Programs, go to QuickBooks Conversion Tool, and click QuickBooks Conversion Tool.
10. In the conversion tool, follow the onscreen instructions.

    When asked for a name for the new company file and the directory to save it in, make sure that it will not overwrite an existing QuickBooks company.More information

    The conversion tool saves the new company as a QuickBooks .qbw file with the name of the original Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting company. If the chosen location contains an existing QuickBooks company file with the same name as your Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting company (or if you convert the same company a second time and save it to the same location), it will overwrite your QuickBooks file.

    Note: Create the new company file on your local hard disk (that is, not on a shared folder on the network). You can move the file to a new location after the conversion finishes.

    If you receive an error message during the conversion, try these troubleshooting tips.

11. Use this post-conversion checklist to check the results of the conversion.

After converting your data, you will have two sets of data: your original, unchanged Small Business Accounting/Office Accounting data folder and your new QuickBooks company file.

Note: Some fields in the converted data will not be visible in QuickBooks unless the feature is turned on. For example, you cannot access sales tax information if the Sales Tax preference is turned off. To review or change your QuickBooks preferences, start QuickBooks, go to the Edit menu, and click Preferences. Make changes as necessary.