You are either ready to move, or considering the move to QuickBooks or QuickBooks Point of Sale. the only obstacle is the hundreds or thousands of inventory items, vendors, and customers that you have accumulated in your old software. You don't want to, and you don't have time to re-enter that data. And you know mistakes will be made re-entering the data.

Sometimes there is an export function in your existing software, but you don’t know how to use it, or you don’t know how to convert the data into a form that can be imported into your QuickBooks product.
Other times there is no real export function. We can usually read the files directly and put the information into a form that QuickBooks will readily accept.

When you have decided to move up to QuickBooks Point of Sale (or QuickBooks Accounting) from another software package you will find that the import routines built into QuickBooks are helpful for bringing in lists such as inventory, customers, and vendors.

First of all you need to get the information from the existing database. Many times the software will have an export routine that allows you to export the information. Sometimes it will not have an import routine and you have to get the information out of the database directly. ABC can usually do this and we have done it with many different databases. If you have an export you will then likely find some or all of the following when you proceed potential problems:

• You don’t know how to transfer the information into a format that can be imported.
• Data has been not entered consistently into the proper fields, especially when you have multiple address fields.
• The length of the information that you have does not fit the fields in QBPOS.
• Information from different fields has to be combined and altered before importing.
• Formatting of the fields is not acceptable, phone numbers without punctuation etc.
• UPC codes are not fully recorded, lacking the checksum digits.
• Lack of unique identification fields in the data to be imported.
• Unacceptable duplicates in key indexed fields.
• Upper and lower case entries in the old data need to be straightened out properly.

Of course, even if the data is in perfect condition, using the import routine requires you to learn the ins and outs of how to do this task. You will invest your time in learning how to do a task that you may never need to do again. You will need to check the field sizes and make sure that they meet the import requirements. You also need to decide which fields to put into the ALU and other fields for the best use in looking up items after they are imported.

The experience that ABC has in doing conversions allows us to convert your data and relieve you of the stress of the data conversion while you are dealing with all of the other issues that come up with implementing a new software package in a timely manner. We are glad to work with you to provide the most economical solution possible, providing for your involvement in the process where it will help to minimize your total cost. In some cases it makes sense to pull the data, put it in a format that you can correct yourself and then move forward with more conversion to the data or allow for direct import. Our goal is an enjoyable and successful implementation of your new QuickBooks Point of Sale system.