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You can use Accountant's Assistant to import client data from Intuit's QuickBooks Pro (including both Premier (also Accountant's Edition) and Enterprise editions for the years currently supported by QuickBooks. Information can be imported into Accountant's Assistant only from the client's *.QBW files. Accountant's Assistant is provided with the CBS Master License. You can import client data from QuickBooks, and you can use Accountant's Assistant to transfer certain types of transactions (adjustments) back to the client's QuickBooks program.

• See CSA or Accounting CS Versions of QuickBooks that can be Imported for more information.

• If you are not able to open QuickBooks as required during this import procedure (for example, if you are running Creative Solutions Accounting (CSA) and Accountant's Assistant in Virtual Office CS or other Terminal Server environment), you or your client can use the CS QuickBooks Data Utility to create an export file. For more information on the CS QuickBooks Data Utility, refer to Using the CS QuickBooks Data Utility.

• If you are importing payroll checks, you must first have at least one checkbook set up in CSA prior to importing QuickBooks Pro data.

Requirements

• Accountant's Assistant version 2005.4.3 or higher.
• QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise edition must be installed on the machine where the import is being processed.
• The company database must be open in QuickBooks during the import process unless your computer is running the Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system. (The original data file is not altered in any way during the import process.) With Windows Vista or Windows 7, you would open the company in QuickBooks just before you press the Retrieve button in the Accountant's Assistant QuickBooks Pro Data Range screen. For more information with Windows Vista or Windows 7, refer to K75181788.
• If you do not own a version of QuickBooks, retrieving company information from QuickBooks is still possible with the use of the CS QuickBooks Data Utility. For more information on the CS QuickBooks Data Utility, refer to Using the CS QuickBooks Data Utility.
• If you will be importing payroll data, the QuickBooks company must have an active QuickBooks payroll subscription. To verify whether a payroll subscription is active, open the company in QuickBooks and choose Payroll Center from the Employees menu. Your payroll subscription status will be displayed in the upper-right corner of the dialog that opens - in green if active or in red if inactive.

Import procedure

1. In QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, or QuickBooks Enterprise, open the QBW file for the company from which you will be retrieving data.

   Note: If you do not own a version of QuickBooks, retrieving company information from QuickBooks is still possible with the use of the CS QuickBooks Data Utility. For more information on the CS Quick books Data Utility, refer to Using the CS QuickBooks Data Utility. If the company data has been created with a file by the CS QuickBooks Data Utility, skip this step and proceed to Step 2.

2. Open the client in CSA that corresponds to the client's QuickBooks Pro company.

   Note: The General Ledger module must be selected for this CSA client. If you are importing payroll information from your client's QuickBooks Pro company, you must also select the Payroll Compliance module for the client.

3. In CSA, choose Utilities > Accountant's Assistant > QuickBooks Pro.
4. Choose Setup > Miscellaneous Information to open the Miscellaneous Information dialog. Choose the General Ledger account to use for unassigned by selecting it from the drop-down list.
5. (Optional) You may choose to mark any of the following checkboxes:
   • Do not import employees or payroll checks
   • Import only employees and payroll checks
   • Do not import inactive employees
   • Do not import inactive vendors
   • Skip Chart of Accounts Assignment
   • Do not import classes
6. (Optional) If you want to create a GL transaction when you retrieve payroll checks from QuickBooks Pro, mark the Create payroll journal entry checkbox, and then click the option for the type of journal entry to be created.
7. Click one of the options to set the date for the payroll entry and then click OK.
8. If you are bringing in payroll checks, you also have the option to choose how to update the Earnings. You can choose from the following two options:
   • Use the current Payroll period ending date - Choose this option to use the current Payroll period ending date as the period in which to update earnings and enter payroll checks.
   • Use the check date's month - Choose this option to use the check date's month to determine in which month the earnings will update and payroll checks will be entered.
9. Choose Tasks > Retrieve to begin importing QuickBooks Pro information. You will be prompted to backup your client data before continuing to import QuickBooks data. After you have created the backup copy, the QuickBooks Pro Data Location dialog opens.
10. The Retrieve Options dialog opens. Click the appropriate option to indicate whether you are importing from a .QBW company data file or from a file created by the CS QuickBooks Data Utility, and then click the OK button.
11. Depending on the option you selected in the previous step, either the QuickBooks Pro Data Location dialog or the QuickBooks Export File Location dialog opens. Navigate to the appropriate location and then click Open or OK.
12. The QuickBooks Pro Date Range dialog opens. Enter the date range in MMDDYY format for the data you want to import and then click Retrieve. (Only transactions that fall in the specified date range will be imported. If your client has entered a transaction since the last import with a date prior to your date range, that transaction will not be imported into Accountant's Assistant.)
13. The QuickBooks - Application Certificate dialog opens automatically in QuickBooks:
    • Click the Yes, always; allow access to the data even if QuickBooks is not running option.
    • Mark the Allow this application to access personal data such as Social Security Numbers and customer credit card information checkbox.

If at any time, you need to verify the certificate is valid, or you need to delete the certificate, you can access it without going through another import. In QuickBooks, under Edit/Preference, select Integrated Applications and select the Company Preferences tab to see the applications that have been given permission to access the selected QB company file. If you have already granted permission to access a QB company file, Accounting CS – QuickBooks Import will be listed here.

14. Click the Continue button, and then click the Done button at the Access Confirmation prompt.

    Note: When you attempt to retrieve data from a QuickBooks company file for the first time, you will be prompted by QuickBooks to grant permission to access the company data. You will not be prompted again if you subsequently attempt to import from that same company file. However, if you receive a new copy of the QuickBooks data for the same client company each period, you will be prompted in QuickBooks each time you import.

15. The Chart of Accounts Assignment dialog opens automatically during the import process. If the QuickBooks account number is valid (based on CSA account number criteria) and is not mapped to an existing CSA account within this dialog, it will be automatically added to CSA upon transfer.
16. If there is no active payroll subscription for the QuickBooks data being imported, a message prompt opens to alert you that no payroll checks will be imported. Employees may still be imported, but no checks or earnings will be included. (If you do not need to import payroll data, prior to the import you may choose Setup > Miscellaneous Information from within Accountant's Assistant and mark the Do not import employees or payroll checks checkbox.)
17. If the client has been flagged to use the Payroll Compliance module, the Payroll Item List opens. From the drop-down list on the right side, choose the CSA payroll item that corresponds to the QuickBooks Pro Payroll Item and then click OK. You must choose a CSA item for each QuickBooks Pro item before you can proceed.
    • The CSA payroll item that you select should be the same type (pay, withholding, or deduction) as the item in QuickBooks.
    • Do not assign the CSA default item Direct Deposit to a QuickBooks Pro direct-deposit item. That would cause the transactions to appear twice in the Bank Reconciliation window.
    • Employer-paid withholding and deduction items must contain either the word company or the word unemployment in QuickBooks to be excluded from the Payroll Item List.
18. The import from QuickBooks attempts to match existing CSA employees with employees from the import data based on Social Security Number. Any unmatched employees are displayed in the Assign QuickBooks Employees to CSA Employees dialog, which opens automatically during the import. Select an existing CSA employee to be matched to each employee or mark the New CSA Emp checkbox and assign a unique employee ID. Click OK to proceed with the import.
    • You may match only a single QuickBooks employee to each existing CSA employee.
    • When adding a new employee, you must assign a unique employee ID.
    • If no employees exist in CSA prior to the import, the Assign QuickBooks Employees to CSA Employees dialog does not appear and employee IDs are assigned starting with ID 1 and incremented by 1. You may renumber employees after the import; subsequent imports continue to use the employee IDs as you have renumbered them.
19. When the import is complete, choose Tasks > Process Transactions to view the imported data. You will need to replace any blank accounts with the Undistributed Account or individually edit each transaction with a blank account and provide an account number using the Edit > Edit Accounts dialog.
20. You can also run the diagnostic reports from the File > Print Reports dialog to see what Chart of Accounts, Vendors, and Employees have been added, changed or deleted and you can run the Transaction Report to view or print all the transactions imported from the client.
21. Once the Process Transactions and Reports have been reviewed the last step is to Transfer to CSA available from the Tasks menu or clicking on the icon from the shortcut bar.

Additional information

• Information only from the *.QBW files are imported into Accountant's Assistant. If you do not own a version of QuickBooks, retrieving company information is still possible with the use of the CS QuickBooks Data Utility. For more information on the CS QuickBooks Data Utility, refer to Using the CS QuickBooks Data Utility.
• If a non-deposit transaction has not been assigned a reference, Accountant's Assistant automatically adds the reference QB99.
• QuickBooks deposits without reference numbers use the CSA deposit reference that has been set up in File > Client Properties dialog (rather than QB99).
• If a transaction uses an invalid account number (one with spaces, number signs, dollar signs, or other such characters), Accountant's Assistant uses the Undistributed Account for that transaction.
• If an account number uses any invalid characters, the account will not be added to the Chart of Accounts.
• Deposits are imported with a separate debit and credit transaction on the Checks and Deposits tab of the Tasks > Transactions window in CSA.
• Payroll liability checks that have not been assigned a check number are imported with reference number 99999 on the Checks and Deposits tab of the Tasks > Transactions dialog, and their offset will be part of the Cash Disbursement entry.
• For customer payments, a C is prefixed to the QB reference number during the import.
• For invoices, an I is prefixed to the QB reference number during the import.
• Payroll checks with no reference number, with alpha reference numbers, or marked To Print are excluded from the import.
• If the QuickBooks company does not contain a valid payroll subscription, paychecks, and payroll liability checks are excluded from the import.
• The SUTA state on the Employee Setup will not be retrieved. This will need to be setup again on each employee after the import.
• If the Do not import inactive employees checkbox is marked in the Setup > Miscellaneous Information dialog:
  • Employees with a "Release Date" in QuickBooks Pro prior to the date range retrieved are excluded from the data retrieval.
  • Transactions associated with any inactive employee are not imported.
• If the Do not import inactive vendors checkbox is marked in the Setup > Miscellaneous Information dialog, transactions associated with any inactive vendor are not imported.
• QuickBooks allows for selection of cash or accrual basis for reporting purposes only. If there are accounts receivable or accounts payable accounts within the QuickBooks company, the data will retrieve into CSA on the accrual basis. There is no conversion to change from the accrual to cash basis in CSA. If you wish to switch from one basis to the other after bringing the information into CSA, you must manually make adjustments within the Transactions window.

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