[GNC] First time with Quickbooks difficulty

[Adrien Monteleone]

I agree with the recommendations to start fresh and work on importing 
historical data after, but there is a good reason to not just relegate 
the history to QB forever, because since at least 2021 I think, QB is no 
longer forever and maybe even earlier, depending on which version you 
are running or how it was installed. (certainly true of any 'cloud' 
versions, the desktop versions held out the longest)

I assist a small family business that was using QB since the early 
2000s. They were buying a physical install disc for each new version 
every 3 years, and paying an annual Payroll subscription. (for tax table 
updates) Intuit made changes a couple of years ago that effectively 
killed the desktop edition and massively raised pricing on both their 
cloud and payroll subscriptions. So the business switched to something 
else and saved over $1K a year. (sadly, they did not move to GnuCash, 
but since it was really just Payroll functionality they needed, I could 
understand)

The kicker is that we had already unknowingly upgraded QB to a version 
that had a built-in lock if you didn't upgrade and stopped paying. So 
after a certain point, ALL DATA was forever lost/locked anyway. I can't 
even access it now. (thankfully, I did export it as CSV during the switch)

I don't have hard figures, but I think the 2009 edition is the last one 
that didn't have this lock. Others may get lucky with later editions. 
(2012, 2015, 2018) For certain, the 2021 edition does have it.

If a QB user can export their data out of modern QB and imported into an 
older desktop version without the lock that can run in WINE, that would 
be the easiest path. Barring that, I'd make the attempt to import CSVs 
into GnuCash, or just rely on paper reports for historical data.

*note - Quicken users may be luckier.

Regards,
Adrien

p.s. – just in case someone had this idea, as I did, you cannot simply 
open a recent QB file with an older version. It will complain about it 
and refuse. There may be workarounds, but I haven't looked into it. (yet)

On 8/4/25 4:15 PM, R Losey wrote:
> Welcome to GnuCash!  This is the correct group to email for help.
> 
> Please forgive a dumb question, but why don't you just draw a line and say
> that QuickBooks has our data up to 31 Aug 2025, and then GnuCash has the
> data started 01 Sep 2025?
> 
> Yes, you'll need to keep something around to run Quickbooks should you need
> to look at older data (or could you run reports and archive those?), but as
> time passes, you'll need the older data less and less.
> 
> I didn't use Quickbooks, but I used Quicken for many years. I had various
> issues trying to import the data, and I finally abandoned that and just
> started afresh with GnuCash, and I haven't regretted it.
> 
> Just a thought that may or may not work for you.