Evenbead docs
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Migrate from QuickBooks Desktop

Evenbead copies a QuickBooks Desktop company file through QuickBooks Web Connector, the free Intuit tool that ships with QuickBooks Desktop. Web Connector runs next to QuickBooks (on your PC or a hosted QuickBooks session) and talks to Evenbead's own endpoint at https://app.evenbead.com/qbwc. No third party sees the data, and the connection is read-only: Evenbead never writes to your QuickBooks file.

Nothing is imported until the copy reproduces QuickBooks' own trial balance to the cent at every month-end. That check is the tie-out.

Before you start

  • QuickBooks Desktop (Pro, Premier or Enterprise) open on the company file, signed in as the QuickBooks Admin.
  • Web Connector installed (it comes with QuickBooks; in QuickBooks: File > App Management > Update Web Services).
  • An Evenbead company with empty books to import into (use the empty starter chart: the migration brings its own chart of accounts).
  • A person with the admin scope in that company. Agents cannot create, import or cut over a migration.

Steps

  1. Create the connection. In the web app open Migration (/app/migration), pick the export date (usually your cutover date) and whether to keep tax IDs (needed for 1099s; card numbers are never copied). Through the API: POST /v1/migrations/qbwc/connections with {"as_of":"2026-09-30"}.
  2. Copy the password and download the .qwc file. Both are shown once. The password is stored only as a hash; the download works once.
  3. Add the file to Web Connector. Open Web Connector, choose Add an application, pick the .qwc file and allow read-only access when QuickBooks asks (choose to allow it even when QuickBooks is not running only if you want unattended runs).
  4. Run it. Enter the password, tick the Evenbead line and click Update Selected. Keep QuickBooks open. If it is interrupted it picks up where it stopped; Web Connector retries every few minutes.
  5. Watch progress. The connection page (or GET /v1/migrations/qbwc/connections/{id}) shows each extraction step: lists, transactions per month, reports.
  6. Check the tie-out. When extraction finishes Evenbead builds the export bundle and compares its trial balance with QuickBooks' report at every month-end, plus AR and AP aging (GET .../tieout). Differences are listed per account.
  7. Import. A person imports the bundle into the empty books (POST .../import). The ledger runs its own tie-out; on any difference nothing is kept and the attempt is recorded as failed.
  8. Cut over. When you are ready to stop using QuickBooks, cut over (POST /v1/migrations/{id}/cutover). Evenbead becomes the record and the Web Connector connection is revoked. Remove the Evenbead line from Web Connector and from QuickBooks' integrated applications.

What comes over

Lists (accounts, customers, vendors, items, classes, terms, sales tax), every transaction type with its lines and links, open invoices and bills as documents with their balances, and the reports the tie-out needs. Each QuickBooks transaction becomes one imported entry, checked against QuickBooks' general ledger; imported history is marked as such in the audit log.

Troubleshooting

  • It asks for the password again or stops: the connection may have expired (30 days) or been locked after repeated wrong passwords. A person can unlock it (POST .../unlock) or create a new one.
  • "The file is different": Web Connector is open on another company file than the one the connection started with. Open the right file.
  • Tie-out differences: usually transactions changed in QuickBooks during extraction. Run Web Connector again; changed months are re-read.
  • Revoke a connection you no longer need (POST .../revoke): staged data is wiped.

A local export tool for files that cannot run Web Connector (offline or privacy-restricted machines) is planned.