Moving from Quickbooks to Quicken

You will not be able to go from Quickbooks to Quicken. You can go from Quicken yo Quickbooks. There is no conversion of QB data file to Q data files.

Per

As already noted, there is no direct way to get data from Quickbooks to Quicken.

But I think you might be able to get some data transferred by: exporting one or more reports (probably "transaction" reports) to delimited files, opening in Excel, reformatting as necessary, using xl2qif (or similar) to export to QIF files, and importing to Quicken.

Mr. Jan,

As a former HOA treasurer, I would strongly recommend that you NOT convert from QuickBooks for a number of reasons:

1. I found QuickBooks as easy to use as Quicken.
2. You get a lot more, and in my opinion, better reporting formats.
3. It's much easier to track association due receipts by owner, using Accounts Receivable which really isn't supported in Quicken Deluxe.
4. It's also easier to track vendor payments through Accounts Payable.
5. I much prefer QuickBooks income/expense reporting capabilities.

Having said all of that, I do use Quicken for my own personal finances and have for years. I just don't think it's powerful enough for tracking HOA activity.

Mr. Jan,

I left out the most important reason:

1. At some point, you will no longer be treasurer. Your replacement may not want to pick up these duties and the HOA board may again want to hire an outside bookkeeper. It will be a lot easier, and most likely less expensive, if they can pick up from where you left off in QuickBooks. I would doubt very much if that person would want or be willing to continue with Quicken.

If I can be of any further assistance, just let me know.

I don't own a copy of Quickbooks and don't want to purchase one for our tiny HOA. The odd thing is the current treasurer has been "doing the books" in Excel and ignoring the bookkeeper's reporting. I agree about your comment on the next treasurer and it is my major concern. Still, the question was "how to" and not "should I". It just seems that if the current guy is ignoring her reporting, why are we paying her?

I want to find out what the situation is before I make any recommendations and one of those items will be how to capture and convert her records to something we can use. I figure to check the current treasurer's Excel against her records to see if they sync up. Then ask her to prepare a budget and determine what report formats we need. THEN, she will post them to our HOA site as a file every month. After we do that for a while, I will decided if I am going to recommend eliminating the expense.

?Hi, Mr. Jan.

I've never used QuickBooks, but in my opinion, Quicken is not suitable for any third-party accounting situation.

By "third-party" situation, I mean one like your treasurer's job. In my mind, when we keep books for ourselves, that's a first-party situation and the accuracy and integrity of the accounting is nobody's business but our own. Second-party accounting would for a situation such as managing the finances of a close family member, where mutual trust is an essential part of the equation.

But as treasurer for your association, your accounting and reports. will be subject to scrutiny by officers and members of the association, plus probably lenders and other outsiders. In any such situation, accounting integrity should be guaranteed as much as possible by a system of internal controls, such as splitting responsibility for writing checks from the duty of recording those expenditures. Quicken's program offers absolutely no "internal controls" to assure that all transactions are recorded and reported properly. For beginners, any entry in Quicken can be deleted without a trace at any time. Anybody with access to the computer can make, change or delete any entry at any time for any reason, with no record of who did it or when or why. If any discrepancy ever arises in your association's accounting, you and the bookkeeper may be pointing fingers at each other, and even at other people; you will want a clear "audit trail" that will show who did what, when - and maybe why.

In olden pen-and-ink days, when I studied accounting and auditing, we learned to always use permanent ink so that erasures or changes would be evident. When necessary, we would "draw a single non-obliterating line through the incorrect entry, make the correct entry alongside, and initial the change". There's no way to create such a permanent record of corrections or other changes in Quicken. Even today, I could go back and change the payee on a 2008 entry in my system and there would be no evidence that the entry had not always read as it would now.

In my own books, this is not much of a problem. But if some third party were keeping books for MY company, I would want a more-secure accounting system than Quicken!

Since I'm not familiar with QuickBooks, I can't comment on your question about compatibility.

RC

Nicely put. In my accounting classes, the instructor always told us too never to erase or delete an entry either. BUT, I wonder in QB has anything inherent in it that prevents one from just altering or deleting an entry without anything else being generated to detect it after the fact either? I played with it for a while but didn't see any sort of 'audit' trail..

I appreciate your comments. A piece of information I did not give was that this is only an 11 home community so the actual bookkeeping is pretty light. In addition to that, I would point out that the current treasurer does not use the bookkeeper's reporting and does his own in Excel. The community is only responsible for mowing of the common area, plowing the parking area, and payment of a loan taken out to resurface the parking area years ago. Frankly, one of our largest expenses is for the bookkeeper. My thought is that for 6 checks a month and not using her reports, we should not be spending the money.

I also think that Quicken would be quite sufficient to record this much activity. I certainly will keep your comments in mind. I had not thought of the ability to track changes. Good point. I plan to keep things as they are for six months or so until I really understand the dynamics. I may pick up a copy of QuickBooks at that time anyway. Another software toy to play with.

From another HOA treasurer and bookkeeper:

Depending on your tax reporting needs Quicken does NOT produce a Balance Sheet so you have no real way of tracking assets or reserve funds, for example.

Financial reports in Quicken in general are not very good.

A/P and A/R in Quicken is terrible (only available in H&B).

Your HOA is a business. You are better off using an accounting program that was designed for business.

QuickBooks does have an audit trail report. It is found under Accountant and Taxes. In earlier versions it could be turned off. As of 2008 or

The number of transactions is not the issue. The nature of the business and any financial reporting/tracking needs really dictate it.

Is the bookkeeper an employee? Quicken can not do payroll checks or tax forms.

Why would sticking with Quickbooks cost any money? Doesn't the HOA already own a copy of the program?

And if she is not using the reports in Quickbooks then she is not using the program to it indended use. Look for reports in quickbooks that will match her reports. She may be exporting the reports from QuickBooks and doctoring them up. There really is no reason to not use the quickbook reports, imho.

The lady is an independent contractor and we pay her a fixed fee. She owns the QuickBooks, not the HOA.

Since the current treasurer is doing all the bookkeeping in Excel and ignoring her reports (see earlier posts), I could just do the bookkeeping that way. This is VERY simple stuff.

For AR, I would set up an account for each of the 11 homeowners.For AP I would use TAGs for each vendor. For the Balance Sheet, I would run the account balances report by class and modify in Excel if I had to. Same with any other reporting. BUT, I could be missing something.

I re-read your note and I see that I need to clarify our organization. We have a treasurer who is a homeowner, a member of the board, and acts as liaison with the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper is a lady who has no other connection with the HOA and does books for multiple organizations. I am going to take over the treasurer post in November and will be working with the bookkeeper at that time.

Does the HOA also need to track reserve funds?

what tax return do you file? Have you discussed this with your accountant or auditor?

Thanks Laura - good stuff. Should keep RC happy as well as me!

It would be improper of me to discuss this with the bookkeeper yet as I am not in the Treasurer's position and it is his job to act as liaison. One of the questions I have is about the tax returns. Good question. I do not believe we track fund reserves. If they do, I would do that with Tags and split transactions in Quicken. I do appreciate this discussion. It is making me think about what to ask and what to consider. I assure you, I will not take dismissing the bookkeeper lightly.

Reserve Funds are equity accounts on the balance sheet. Typical HOA reserve funds are for Capital Improvements/Replacement Funds (for major replacement of common area) and Deferred Maintenance (painting, etc done on a cyclical schedule).

Since these accounts are on the balance sheet, this is another reason why Quicken or excel is not appropriate means of tracking your financials. You need a true double sided accounting system to properly track these funds (as well as your other expenditures).

In addition to the tax return you should also check your HOA & state by-laws concerning annual audits to make sure you are in compliance.

Quicken Deluxe is a double entry accounting system. It does not have equity accounts but I take your point. As I said, I have not seen the books yet. I would like to establish a reserve account for tree removal. I suspect we will have some trees that need to be taken down or removed after they are blown down. Still, we are not reserving any money for that now.