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What sort of challenges will I encounter trying to transfer existing data that was used in this old version of QuickBooks to Dynamics GP?
The company has been using QuickBooks for over 10 years and has a 410mb qbw file, and another 200mb of other Excel documents.I'm new to Dynamics, and would appreciate any help and/or recommendations.
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Great information and advice from both Leslie and SLP. If you've never done a data migration into GP, do not try it alone.
You might also try contacting Microsoft Business Solutions Professional Services. MBSProfessionalServices@microsoft.com.
They perform QB-GP migrations as a service. They may also be willing to offer some advice on how to plan the conversion.
Cyalume - We've been using a Microsoft Certified Partner SDSI for QuickBooks to Dynamics GP data conversions for many years and they have been very good at transferring all the transaction history from any version of QuickBooks. Recently we had a customer of ours that had six QuickBooks Enterprise databases with several million Invoices, Receive Payments, Vendor Bills and Bill Payment Checks. SDSI converted the QuickBooks "Classes" to GP AA Dimension Codes for FRx Reporting and the QuickBooks "Jobs" or Project data to the GP Project Accounting Module, setup the GP Inventory and merged all six QuickBooks files data into one GP Company database. The full project took about a week and our client was up and running in GP.
To give you an idea of their process they will export all your QuickBooks data including ALL your transaction history. They will then email you customized Excel spreadsheets for the Chart of Accounts, Items Lists (including Inventory), Class Lists (for AA Dimension Code Mapping), Vendor and Customer Lists. You can then cleanup your Chart of Accounts using their Excel spreadsheet (i.e. merging accounts, renaming accounts, setting Account Numbers etc.) and then entering your new Customer Numbers, Vendors Numbers and Item Numbers for the conversion to GP. You send these Excel Mapping Templates back to SDSI and they create the GP "Dynamics" system database and one or more "Company" GP databases for you and then converts all the Master Records and ALL historical transactions to your new GP database. They then run the "Year-End Closing" procedures for all historical years and send you a link to download the completed GP databases.I would highly recommend using SDSI for your QuickBooks to Dynamics GP data conversions including the new GP 2010. Their website is http://www.silicondigitalsystems.com/dataconversion or call (425) 898-8417. Good luck and hope this helps.
MK
Hello again,
I forgot to mention that you really need the help of an experienced consultant to do this transfer. I would never recommend trying this without assistance. Microsoft Dynamics GP requires many critical setup decisions. Some of these decisions cannot be reversed. Compared to QuickBooks, it can be pretty overwhelming. I don't want to discourage you from doing it. I think GP is a feature-rich system that runs rings around QuickBooks, but don't go it alone!
Kind regards,
Leslie
Hi Cyalume,
One of the hardest things in any system conversion is managing expectations. Dynamics is not QuickBooks. I know that seems kind of obvious, but if they are used to QuickBooks, then they are probably used to changing any historical information at any time. As you know, Dynamics GP does not work that way. Once the transaction is posted, the only thing you can do is void it or enter an adjustment. Not being able to change things at any time has been a complaint I have seen often. QuickBooks, after all, is not really an accounting system.
Transferring history is another issue. Everyone starts out thinking they want it, but in the end it is usually not worth the cost of importing. GL Transaction (summary) history is easy, but you need to set up history years and go through each year-end close in order. I would suggest importing the history as a budget to avoid having to create the extra years in GL. You can then drop the budget ID onto your reports to represent the historical numbers. Another bonus of using budgets is that you can import the history 'later', after the system is up and running.
Vendor/Customer/Item ID numbers is one more hurdle to jump. QuickBooks doesn't really lend itself to using 'IDs'. Mostly I've seen the customers, etc. identified by typing in the name of the customer, vendor, etc. Not pretty when it is imported. I would suggest developing a consistent method for creating the 'IDs', and then apply them before the information comes into Dynamics.
Account Numbers also come to mind. QuickBooks companies often do not even use account numbers. If you do have QB set up to require account numbers, you may want to re-think the numbering system.
Any ERP conversion is a big deal, but QuickBooks is often harder from the user acceptance standpoint.
Good luck to you!
Kind regards,
Leslie
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