As your business grows, QuickBooks may no longer meet your needs, leaving you struggling with inefficiencies, disjointed processes, and limited data insights. What does it take to migrate from QuickBooks to Acumatica without disrupting your operations or overburdening your team?
Moving your business from QuickBooks to Acumatica upgrades your operations for next-level growth. At Stellar One, our specialists have helped companies successfully make the same transition.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the migration process, highlight potential challenges, and show how you can set your business up for success with Acumatica. You’ll discover what to expect during the migration, how to prepare your team, and why this upgrade is worth it for your long-term success.
Remember why you’re making the switch from QuickBooks to Acumatica
A growing business has increasing demands that QuickBooks can’t meet.
This can cause:
- Data silos: Disconnected systems limit real-time insights and collaboration.
- Scalability issues: QuickBooks isn’t designed to handle complex operations, such as multi-entity management or large transaction volumes.
- Limited functionality: Advanced accounting features, custom workflows, and industry-specific tools are often absent.
- Manual processes: Over-reliance on manual work increases errors and inefficiencies
Want a closer look at the challenges you may face when you leave QuickBooks behind? Take a deeper dive on our blog.
Acumatica resolves QuickBooks issues by offering:
- A unified platform for accounting, inventory, CRM, and more.
- Scalable solutions for growing businesses.
- Automation that reduces manual tasks.
- Industry-specific functionality tailored to your business needs.
What you need to do before you migrate from QuickBooks to Acumatica
A successful migration involves careful planning, collaboration, and phased execution. Your partner will significantly influence how well-structured and effective your migration is.
However, the project's success lies with your company, your leadership, and your team.
Engage an ERP implementation partner
Working with an experienced Acumatica partner is crucial. They bring expertise, proven methodologies, and tools to ensure a seamless transition. Most Acumatica partners focusing on small to midsized businesses are experienced with QuickBooks migrations. Look for one with additional expertise in your industry.
Before you undergo migration planning, your partner will need to know your business goals and objectives, the challenges you are looking to solve, and what capabilities are essential.
Have an ERP migration plan before you start
Set goals, milestones, and timelines. Explore how to align ERP goals with your business objectives and create a roadmap that ensures stakeholder engagement and a smooth, phased implementation.
Your partner can help guide this process. Identify an internal project manager accountable for meeting the deadlines with your internal team and processes.
Set up your chart of accounts
This foundational step involves standardizing your chart of accounts (COA) to ensure data consistency. While your chart of accounts doesn’t need to be perfect, you will need to consider how you will want to associate numbers and segments with your accounts in your new ERP solution.
QuickBooks can be ideal for a start-up business because it does not require setting up a chart of accounts, allowing a business to quickly set up its books without the help of an accountant or financial professional. However, we’ve seen this necessary step delay ERP implementation.
In a worst-case scenario, consider the company using QuickBooks that had never experienced an actual chart of accounts but wanted to migrate to an ERP. The founder’s background was in sales, not accounting, so he set up the QuickBooks account using a homegrown version of a chart of accounts. The migration project was abandoned because the owner was unwilling to get help from a certified accountant to make the move to an ERP.
For another customer, QuickBooks’s “freedom and flexibility” quickly went from benefit to burden during migration to an ERP system. It was discovered that a portion of the chart of accounts had been set up in QuickBooks using general ledger names instead of standard general ledger codes. This halted migration while the whole chart of accounts was revised, causing lost time and headaches for the company. In total, 10 general ledger accounts caused the restructuring of the chart of accounts, and 5 years of historical trial balances were updated.
Acumatica uses standard accounting practices based on a clean and structured chart of accounts, which will be the foundation for much of your other data. Because of its flexibility, Acumatica allows you to renumber and add accounts. However, putting clean data into your system is always preferred over messy data.
Inventory and clean up your data before your ERP data migration
Review and clean your data before migrating. This includes removing duplicates, updating incorrect information, and ensuring consistent formatting across fields like zip codes and state abbreviations.
Decide if you will do this yourself, hire an outside vendor, or if this is something your partner can help you with. If you choose in-house cleanup, be prepared for the manual work involved.
Prepare your organization for how an ERP system will change your processes and your business
Communicate your plan with your users. Explain why this project is happening, including the why for each business area. Leadership should establish their support for the project early on and confirm that the project is happening. Create an ongoing learning plan for your current users and how new hires will be trained.
This is another area where your partner can help. Ask what initial and ongoing training is provided and the cost, if any.
QuickBooks to Acumatica migration: A detailed look at the step-by-step process
1. Project kickoff with your ERP partner
This meeting is an overview of the project. You will meet your partner’s team and identify your employees who will participate in the project. Each person’s roles and responsibilities will be outlined.
Your ERP partner will outline the project's scope, including the Acumatica features and modules to be deployed, third-party integrations, and their data import process. They will also explain how they communicate with you and who you can contact for specific questions and requests.
Now that you’ve established your goals and engaged a partner, let’s explore the foundational steps for your migration.
2. Establish and confirm numbering systems
A chart of accounts is the most crucial numbering system for your migration success. QuickBooks allows this process to be skipped. However, Acumatica’s robust financial capabilities make this listing a foundation for your other data.
Once your chart of accounts is established, you should develop numbering sequences for sales orders, item numbers, inventory, and other items. Think about what you need these numbers to tell you, how you will use them for reporting, and how they need to be able to scale for growth.
With numbering set up, it’s time to use them in the data clean-up process.
3. Extract and clean your master data
Essential data, such as customer, supplier, and product records, will be extracted from QuickBooks. Each data set imported into Acumatica needs to be cleaned up and harmonized with Acumatica’s data requirements.
Extracting and cleaning your data prior to your ERP migration includes:
- Locate your data: Identify where your data is, which data needs to be moved, and how it will be moved.
- Data clean up: Cleaning your data includes removing duplicates, updating incorrect information, and ensuring consistent formatting across fields like zip codes and state abbreviations.
- Examples of what this process identifies and corrects include:
- Empty fields that are critical and need data
- Invalid or mismatched data types, such as text in a numeric field
Consistency in data input, such as each US state identified with two capital letters, properly structured email addresses, and input commonalities such as consistent spelling or abbreviations.
With your data cleaned and organized to meet Acumatica's requirements, the next step is to effectively map it into Acumatica to optimize its functionality and usability.
4. Map and configure your Acumatica system
Meetings with your ERP implementation partner will be ongoing throughout the migration process. The discovery meeting is important to your post-live outcomes. During this meeting, your partner will work with your internal team to map and document your data and process flows in the Acumatica ERP software.
Your business’s configurations will be identified and outlined to align with processes, workflows, and reporting needs.
Now that your system is mapped, your implementation team will move your data into your new system.
5. Import and validate your data in Acumatica
Your cleaned master data is imported into Acumatica. During this process, your ERP partner will look for errors and validate the correct field mapping to ensure the accuracy and completeness of your essential data.
This could also be where errors and out-of-balance accounts in QuickBooks come to light. In these instances, forward progress on your migration project could be paused while these problems are corrected.
Finding a problem with your company's financials is never ideal. Finding the problem while migrating to an ERP system is even less comfortable. This is precisely what happened with a customer in the medical supply industry. During data transfer, it was discovered that their trial balances didn’t balance. The company enlisted an external accounting firm to help reconcile and close their books. This delayed their go-live date, but in the end, their migration was successful.
Data import into Acumatica is a crucial step. After this is successful, the process will focus on customizing your platform and preparing it for a hands-on experience.
6. Test processes and verify the results of your Acumatica configurations
Conduct pilot testing with your project group to identify potential issues. A strong testing team will include people from all business areas, including leadership, accounting, sales, warehouse, shipping, and customer service.
Recruiting other internal users can uncover things the project team might miss. Consider asking the most positive and negative users to participate. The first can help cheerlead the project with the rest of your team, while the latter can ensure the strongest objections have been identified and addressed.
Before your system goes live, your Acumatica partner should walk through how the processes you were familiar with in QuickBooks are now done in Acumatica. They will also scope any additional solutions or configurations needed for optimal results.
7. Train and onboard users with the new ERP system
Both Acumatica and your ERP partner bring extensive expertise in training and onboarding users to ensure a smooth transition. Ask your partner if training is included in your Acumatica deployment and validate what is included and for how long.
Acumatica Open University is a great resource for new and existing users. The courses and materials available online will help you build a learning plan. Your team also needs to practice using the new system.
Change can cause anxiety, so use empathy when communicating with your team, but set firm learning timelines so they are ready before your go-live date.
The most efficient way to train your users is to use a train-the-trainer approach. Designate a person on your team to receive comprehensive training from your ERP partner, who can then train the rest of your staff.
8. Make testing and learning iterative
Training users, testing the platform, and optimizing configurations isn’t linear. Each of these should be continuous, even after your go-live date.
To make this an ongoing process, create a loop for testing and feedback to confirm results, refine configurations, and confirm workflows. This will help you to optimize your system for the best operational efficiency.
Go-live and beyond: What happens after your Acumatica ERP migration is complete?
Your go-live date will be determined by agreement with your ERP partner that your system is ready. This should align with an internal user team that is fully enabled and familiar with the necessary workflows.
This is when open balances and active transactions are imported.
Go-live is a single point in time. Improving and optimizing your system is not. Most partners will offer a period of more intensive assistance following your go-live. This will help your company adapt and settle into your new operations base.
At Stellar One, we provide extra support during your post-go-live period, including helping you close your books during your first month on the system. Like our unlimited Mission Support, there is no extra cost for this assistance.
To maximize ROI and ensure long-term success:
- Embrace continuous improvement: Review processes regularly to identify and implement efficiencies to streamline your daily operations more effectively. If you partner with Stellar One, we will guide you through this process quarterly, if not more often.
- Leverage Acumatica’s features: Explore advanced tools like dynamic reporting, dashboard capabilities, automated workflows, and industry-specific modules. Work with your partner to ensure your company receives Acumatica’s twice-yearly updates configured for your business.
Now that you’re ready, it’s time to move to Acumatica
Migrating from QuickBooks to Acumatica is a transformative journey that prepares your business for growth and innovation. By partnering with experienced Acumatica professionals, embracing best practices, and fostering a culture of adaptability, you’ll position your business for long-term success. Start your journey today and unlock the full potential of an ERP system designed to grow with you.
After struggling with the limitations of QuickBooks—like data silos, scalability issues, and manual processes—you’ve now gained clarity on what will happen during your migration from QuickBooks to Acumatica.
With the steps outlined here and the right partner by your side, you're ready to take action.
Still looking for the right Acumatica partner? See how Stellar One’s revolutionary method makes your ERP journey easier and more efficient.
