SutorBooks
Switching

Thinking about moving off QuickBooks?

Here is the honest version, including the parts that will put some people off. Moving your books is a real piece of work and you should know exactly what it involves before you start — not in week two, when you have already cancelled something.

Read this part first

Two things are true today that most switching pages would put at the bottom in small type.

  • There is no QuickBooks importer. No one-click migration, no file you upload that recreates your history. Moving means entering opening balances and starting from a date. We have not built an importer and we will not imply that we have.
  • You would be giving up payroll. SutorBooks does not run payroll and does not file taxes. If you pay a crew through QuickBooks today, that has to live somewhere else afterwards.
  • You would be giving up automatic bank feeds. We import a statement file you download. That is a real step backwards in convenience, and for some people it is the whole decision.

What moving actually looks like

Most small businesses switch at a period boundary, because that is the point where a clean line is cheapest to draw.

  1. Pick a date. The start of a quarter or a financial year. Everything before it stays in QuickBooks; everything after it happens in SutorBooks.
  2. Export your reports from QuickBooks — trial balance, balance sheet, and your open invoices and bills as at that date. Keep them. They are your history and your evidence.
  3. Enter opening balances in SutorBooks, so the ledger starts from where you actually are rather than from zero.
  4. Enter what is still outstanding — unpaid invoices and unpaid bills. Usually the longest step, and usually shorter than people fear.
  5. Reconcile the first bank statement after your cutover date. If that reconciles, the move worked.

Your accountant's seat is free on every package, including Free — so whoever normally does your books can do this part with you at no extra cost.

What you would gain

The reasons people give for looking in the first place.

Job costing that is part of the books

Hours and costs land on the job alongside what you billed for it, so profit per job is a report rather than a spreadsheet you maintain beside the accounts.

Job costing →

Your accountant is always free

Accountant and read-only seats never count against your people number on any package, including Free. Nobody has to upgrade so their bookkeeper can log in.

For accountants →

You can leave whenever you want

A full export of your company data, any time. We would rather earn the next month than hold your books hostage — which is a promise worth asking any vendor to make in writing.

Security and data →

Who should not switch

  • If you run payroll in QuickBooks and want it in the same place as your books, stay where you are.
  • If you rely on automatic bank feeds to keep up, we do not have them — importing a file every week will feel worse, and you should believe that about yourself.
  • If you trade in more than one currency, our ledger keeps books in US dollars and refuses anything else.
  • If your accountant will only work in QuickBooks, that is a real constraint and worth asking them about before you move anything.

We would rather you stayed than switched and regretted it in month two. There is no trial to protect here and nothing to recover from a refund — signup is not even open yet.