Quickbooks Point of Sale is an accounting program that tracks your small business’ inventory and sales. Unlike Microsoft Excel, which enables you to create any financial tracking system from scratch, Intuit Quickbooks is dedicated software that aims to replace the cash register. If you have recorded inventory or customer information previously using Excel, Quickbooks can import this data into its own files. The program applies the Excel data to its own standard fields, creating a new spreadsheet from the one in the Excel workbook. This is also very useful if you have exported customers, item lists, or other critical data from your previous POS system or accounting program.
Here, we will use a Vendor Item list and import it into QuickBooks POS:
Step 1
- Click “File” from the Quickbooks menu bar.
- Click “Utilities” from the drop-down menu.
- Click “Import” to launch the Data Import Wizard
Step 2
- Click “Next”
- Click the option button that corresponds with the type of data in the Excel spreadsheet. The three choices are “Inventory Items,” “Vendors” and “Customers” For this example, we will select “Inventory Items.”
- Click “Next”
Step 3
- Click the option button labeled “Custom file” This option increases your flexibility when translating spreadsheet headers to Quickbooks fields.
- Click “Next”
Step 7
- Click “Browse”
- Navigate to and select your Excel workbook.
Step 8
- Click the drop-down box labeled “Data is on sheet:” and select the sheet that you want to import.
- Enter a number in the box labeled “Data starts on row:.” If your Excel sheet’s first row contains column headers, type “2.”
Step 10
Click the drop-down box labeled “Choose file mapping:” and select “<Add new>” to open the Mappings dialog box. This box lists potential fields for the Quickbooks spreadsheet and asks you to choose the corresponding fields from the Excel spreadsheet.
Step 11
Click the drop-down boxes in the “Import Data:” column to select fields from the Excel spreadsheet. For example, Quickbook’s “Item Description” field may correspond with your Excel sheet’s “.ItemID” field, such as in my excel sheet. The Item Name and the Price are probably most important. It is nice to have the UPC and other information as well.
Step 12
Give this mapping a name, then click “Save” to close the Mappings dialog box. Click “Next” twice to open the wizard’s final screen.
Step 13
Click “Import.”
Now it will ask you to backup your file. Do so.