hello folks I have created this little mini series about importing transactions into QuickBooks and
I have added it to the end of the bank feeds courses that's because I want my students to have
every possible option when deciding how to import transactions into QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online
so in this little course we will explore every option for QuickBooks desktop and every option for
QuickBooks Online regarding importing transactions and in this particular video I'm going to give you
a little overview of what your options are so that you're aware of what the options are and you have
some sense of what they are then the four videos that follow this one will give you clear examples
on how to utilize each of those four options first we'll talk about importing transactions in general
lists are always easily imported lists are not transactions when I say lists I mean things like
the chart of accounts the customers the vendors and this type of thing you know they can be easily
exported from one file and imported to another and you absolutely do not need a video series
to import customers or export product lists or services or anything like that the challenging
part of QuickBooks regarding transferring data is importing transactions now third-party software is
great third-party software does everything but you have to pay for it in addition to paying for your
QuickBooks in my opinion the best third-party software that you can buy for importing
transactions into either QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online is Z access if you use that access you can
import both to QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks desktop the great thing about this software is
that you can record every last detail of every type of transaction now I'm not trying to sell
you that access I'm making this little video series to prove to you that the Zedd access is
not always necessary you should explore the free options that are available that I'm explaining in
this little miniseries before deciding to buy use that access or any third-party software program
now to importance actions into QuickBooks desktop there are only two options you can buy and use
the accountants edition of QuickBooks desktop or you can use iff files now if you choose to import
using the accountants edition this is really my recommendation this is really my favorite one
and I can't imagine people not wanting to use this you could upgrade from your QuickBooks Pro
to the accountants edition approximately the same purchase price as it would be if you bought that
access so instead of going and running out and buying a third party software just upgrade your
QuickBooks to the accountant Edition and it gives you the ability to import easily and smoothly and
like I said the difference is the same amount as paying for that access but the good news is
you will have all the other features of the accountant Edition and sometimes those other
features really come in handy so you might want to explore buying the accountants edition or at
least upgrading from your QuickBooks Pro instead of the one you have now if importing transactions
is very important to you you should know that if you use the accountants Edition more than 90% of
the transactions that people commonly have can be imported very easily from Excel or any spreadsheet
program any level of detail that does not import easily into the accountants Edition can be input 9
ually and if you have hundreds of these details then your business is doing well enough to buy
is that access or some third-party software now the other option for desktops is importing AIA
iif files now the great thing about iif files is there's no need for special software they're
meant to be imported into QuickBooks and the other great thing is it imports to every desktop
version whether you have QuickBooks Pro the retail version the accountants Edition whatever this file
format will import transactions directly into QuickBooks another great thing is that it's
possible to import every kind of transaction at every level of detail so if you have transactions
with a lot of detail like what invoices have which payments applied or which deposits have
which receipts being deposited with VAT deposit you know you could use iif files but the problem
with this type of method is that it involves lots of study time because it's kind of like
programming usually it winds up taking longer than entering the transactions manually one by one but
the reason it's used is because large companies have programmers that can give you a file to
import conveniently in fact in my example in the bank feeds PayPal gives you an if' file for free
for your PayPal activity and it imports right into any version of QuickBooks desktop all you have to
do is clarify when you're done but if you know iif programming you can put enough detail so that when
you import you don't have to clarify anything it's ready to go now importing transactions
into quickbooks online has two other options and both of these are imperfect you can upload from
the QuickBooks desktop version in one click it's the easiest thing you'll ever do or you could use
CSV files the problem with CSV files is they're really meant for bank feeds and if you carry us
how they work you have two options you can look at the previous video towards the end of the bank
feeds lesson or you could wait for this lesson to show you again how to import transactions with
CSV files now if you upload from the QuickBooks desktop version the problem is it will overwrite
everything in the qbo account with everything that's on the desktop file and it will do that
every single time you upload the transactions so even though it's the easiest and it's just
one click and you put in your password you keep losing whatever is up in the cloud in lieu of
whatever happens to be in the QuickBooks file that you're uploading and what's online is lost every
time but some people have both the desktop version and quickbooks online and they do this to keep a
record in the desktop version and just upload to the online version so they can log on and find
things from remote locations so you might say well why should i pay for that subscription every month
but some people when they're on the go and they need to log into their information by using the
internet it might be better to pay a few dollars each month and have quickbooks online and just
upload from your desktop just so that you can find things while you're out now CSV files again CSV
files can only import into the bank review section and there are only three pieces of information
that they can import into your quickbooks online date description and amount you must go through
them one by one and reclassify and add detail and those are your options i promise you a very clear
video explaining each of the four options and giving clear examples on how to apply them in the
following four videos thank you for watching and I wish you good luck importing your transactions