How to migrate from QuickBooks Online to Zoho Books
A plain-English plan for moving your books from QuickBooks Online to Zoho Books. Everything below comes from Zoho Books's and Intuit's own help and migration pages, checked . Steps we added ourselves are labeled as our suggestions.
The short version
- It's an export-and-import job. Zoho's US help guide has you export reports from QuickBooks Online (accounts list, customer and vendor lists, products and services, trial balance and a few others) and import them into Zoho Books module by module.
- Order matters. Zoho says to follow its steps in order: chart of accounts first, then customers and vendors, items, bank accounts, opening balances, and finally open bills, payments and advances.
- Zoho recommends bringing in the current financial year only, using closing balances at the start of the year plus open transactions. Importing full history is possible but is the harder route.
- Free help is on offer. Zoho advertises free migration for businesses moving from QuickBooks, and its help guide gives migration@zohobooks.com as the address for migration help.
- Export from QuickBooks before you cancel. Intuit gives paid subscribers read-only access for one year after canceling.
Two ways to set your opening balance date
Zoho's guide describes two approaches. The difference is how much history ends up in Zoho Books.
| Approach | Opening balance date | What you bring in | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current financial year (Zoho's recommendation) | The first day of your current financial year. | Account closing balances as of that date, the open transactions behind them, and this year's transactions. | Most small businesses. Keep QuickBooks exports for older years. |
| Full history | The day your business started. | All the transactions since that date. | Businesses that really need years of detail inside Zoho Books, and have time or help to clean up the imports. |
What to export from QuickBooks Online
Zoho's guide lists these QuickBooks Online reports. You export each one from the Reports area using the Export icon (to Excel or PDF). If you move at the start of a financial year, Zoho says to run the trial balance and inventory valuation reports as of the last day of the previous year.
- Accounts List, which becomes your Zoho Books chart of accounts.
- Customer Contact List and Vendor Contact List.
- Products/Services List, which becomes your Zoho Books items.
- Inventory Valuation Detail, for each item's closing stock (it becomes the opening stock in Zoho Books).
- Trial Balance, for every account's closing balance.
- Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable detail, run from the trial balance and grouped by transaction type, so you can separate open invoices and bills from customer and vendor advance payments.
- Sales by Product/Service and Purchases by Product/Service, if you are bringing in invoices and bills.
One thing to know before you start: QuickBooks Online tracks a customer's open invoices and their advance payments in one Accounts Receivable account. Zoho Books splits them, with advances going to Unearned Revenue. The same goes for vendors, where advances go to Prepaid Expenses. That's why Zoho asks you to split the A/R and A/P reports by transaction type.
Zoho also notes that a few account types have different names. QuickBooks "Cost of Sales" maps to "Cost of Goods Sold", and "Sales of Product Income" maps to "Sales". Fix these in your import file first.
The import order Zoho asks for
- Set up your organization and taxes. Fill in the organization profile and add every sales tax rate you charge before importing anything.
- Import the chart of accounts. Zoho Books already has standard accounts, so skip duplicates and import only extra ones. Put parent accounts above sub-accounts in the file. Check that your bank accounts came in, because you can't enter opening balances without them.
- Turn on the modules and preferences you need (for example quotes, timesheets or inventory tracking). Create custom fields for any QuickBooks fields you want to keep.
- Import customers and vendors. Zoho lists display name plus tax name, tax authority and tax percentage as required fields when sales tax is on.
- Import items. To track inventory, turn it on first and set the inventory start date to the same date as your opening balance date. Use the closing stock from Inventory Valuation Detail as each item's initial stock.
- Add bank and credit card accounts. Connect a live feed or import statements. Fetch feeds from your opening balance date onward. Zoho notes only the last 90 days of transactions can be fetched.
- Enter opening balances in this order: customer and vendor balances, assets, expenses, bank accounts, liabilities, equity, then income. Any difference between debits and credits lands in an Opening Balance Adjustment account you can fix later.
- Import open purchases, then sales: outstanding bills and vendor advances first, then customer advances. These must be dated before the opening balance date.
- Sync backdated transactions. In Settings, Opening Balances, Zoho lists how many transactions are backdated. Click Sync so your trial balance is accurate.
Menu names above follow Zoho's US help guide as of October 22, 2026. Zoho changes its interface from time to time, so follow its current guide if a menu has moved.
What moves and what doesn't
| Data | How it moves |
|---|---|
| Chart of accounts | Import from the QuickBooks Accounts List (some account types renamed). |
| Customers and vendors | Import from the contact lists, including opening balances. |
| Products, services and stock | Import from the Products/Services List, with closing stock as opening stock. |
| Account balances | Entered from your QuickBooks trial balance as opening balances. |
| Open bills, invoices and advances | Imported as transactions dated before the opening balance date, then synced. |
| Bank transactions | Not copied from QuickBooks. You reconnect the bank or import statements, and live feeds only reach back 90 days. |
| Payroll | Not covered by Zoho's QuickBooks Online import guide. Plan payroll separately. |
| Attachments, estimates and other records | Not covered by Zoho's guide. Intuit says some of these have to be exported separately from QuickBooks, so save them before you cancel. |
Cutover checklist
- Pick your opening balance date. Zoho recommends the first day of your current financial year.
- Reconcile bank and card accounts in QuickBooks up to that date.
- Export every report in the list above, and save a PDF of the trial balance as your record.
- Export attachments and any other records you need from QuickBooks, using Intuit's export instructions.
- Sign up for Zoho Books (there's a 14-day trial) and set up your organization and taxes.
- Work through Zoho's import order step by step.
- Sync backdated transactions.
- Our suggestion: compare Zoho's trial balance at the opening balance date with the one you saved from QuickBooks, line by line.
- Set up payroll separately.
- Run both systems side by side for a short period if you can, then cancel QuickBooks.
Before you cancel QuickBooks Online
- Intuit says paid subscribers get read-only access for one year after canceling. During that time you can still export your data.
- On a free trial, your data is kept for only 90 days after you cancel or the trial ends.
- Don't just let your card lapse. Intuit says a declined card gives you 14 days to update billing before the account is suspended.
Free migration help from Zoho
Zoho's US migration page advertises "free migration for all businesses with Zoho Books" and a free migration consultation, through a form where you pick your current software (QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are both options). Its help guide says to email migration@zohobooks.com for migration help, and support.usa@zohobooks.com for questions during the process. We haven't tested the service, so ask Zoho exactly what it will move and how many years of history before you rely on it.
Consider a bookkeeper if you have foreign-currency customers or vendors (Zoho's guide has you work out average exchange rates yourself), tracked inventory, or lots of open invoices and advances.
Is Zoho Books the right place to land?
Check the plan first. On Zoho's US pricing page (checked October 21, 2026), the Free plan is for businesses under $50K in annual revenue, Standard is $20/mo ($15 billed annually), and Professional, at $50/mo ($40 billed annually), is the tier Zoho describes for projects, inventory tracking and purchases. Prices are per organization. Our QuickBooks alternatives by business type page puts Zoho Books next to Xero, FreshBooks, Wave and Aplos. If you're still choosing, also see our QuickBooks Online to Xero guide.
Sources
We used only official vendor documentation. Menus and policies change, so confirm anything important on the vendor's page.
- Zoho Books Help (US): Migrate to Zoho Books from QuickBooks Online (checked )
- Zoho Books (US): Free data migration from QuickBooks or Xero (checked )
- Zoho Books (US): Pricing (checked )
- Intuit QuickBooks Help: Export your QuickBooks Online data (checked )
- Intuit QuickBooks Help: What happens to my QuickBooks Online data after I cancel? (checked )
Last checked: . Not tax, legal or accounting advice.
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