For the past few years I have enjoyed using Microsoft’s free accounting software for my small computer business. Though it took some getting used to at first I found it easy for me to use for the past few years. I planned on updating my main laptop, which I use for all invoices, and accounting for my business to Windows 7. Since I planned on doing a clean install I searched for a new copy of Office Accounting to re-install after I was done. I then found out that there are no more downloads, and Microsoft is giving up on providing a free alternative to Quicken and Peachtree. Bummed but thankful for the years of free service that I received from Microsoft I went out and bought Quickbooks Pro 2010. It was the one product that was listed an easy migration from Office Accounting. After doing a backup and installing Quickbooks, I found out that the migration is not easy and I was reminded why I left Intuit years ago. After 3 hours on the phone it boiled down to me having to turn off UAC in Vista to allow the transfer program run correctly.
So now I have Quickbooks and MS Accounting both up and running on my laptop still in Vista. I figured that I would get all of my data transfered to Quickbooks, then do a backup of it. I would then do my Windows 7 Upgrade and after I re-install Quickbooks Pro 2010 I could import my data. This would have been fine I think , but I decided to make sure everything was going to go as planned. I already knew that I would have somewhat of a learning curve to go through since I had not personally used Quickbooks for some time. I next went to import my bank records from my bank online into Quickbooks just as I had with MS Accounting and BAM! No can do. This led to another 2 hours on the phone with Intuit and a half an hour on the phone with my bank. It turns out that the checking account that I use for my business is compatible with Microsoft Office Accounting 2009, and Quicken but not Quickbooks Pro 2010. Quicken seems to be able to import from Microsoft Money, but it does not mention anything about Microsoft Office Accounting 2009. So my solution is to finish out the year with Microsoft Accounting 2009 on Vista.
In January I will get a new checking account that will import to Quickbooks 2010 and start over with the new software and operating system and bank account. I just thought that others may be facing this soon, and I wanted to let them know to check all of the details before moving away from the Microsoft Office Accounting solution.