What happens to my Sage 50 bank reconciliations when I convert to QuickBooks?
It depends on the file: cleared status can carry over, but prior statement history often does not, so plan to reconcile your first statement in QuickBooks.
The short answer: your reconciliation history does not move across as a finished, statement-by-statement archive. What survives depends on your file and on how the conversion is built. Cleared status on individual transactions can often be carried over, but in most cases you should plan to run your first bank reconciliation in QuickBooks yourself, either from a converted opening balance or by reconciling the first statement after the cutoff date.
What can carry over
Bank transactions themselves, checks, deposits, adjustments and transfers, convert as transactions, and a carefully built conversion can mark them cleared to match the state of your Sage 50 register at the cutoff date. Whether that happens in your file depends on how the reconciliation data is stored, the date range you convert, and the method used. Our engineers verify it during a free evaluation of the file rather than promising it in advance.
What usually does not
The two programs handle reconciliation history differently, so the record of past statements, along with the older reconciliation reports, generally does not arrive as something you can open and browse in QuickBooks. If you need those reports for reference, print or export them from Sage 50 before the conversion. From the cutover date forward, each reconciliation you run in QuickBooks builds its own history.
Reconcile the first statement, or start from an opening balance?
Both approaches work; the right one depends on your cutoff.
- Start from a converted opening balance. Bring each bank account across with a beginning balance as of a clean cutoff, ideally a month end or statement date. Items still outstanding at cutoff are either entered as open items or folded into the opening balance so the first reconciliation ties out.
- Pick up from converted cleared status. If cleared flags carry over and the beginning balance QuickBooks shows matches your last reconciled statement balance in Sage 50, you can reconcile only the new activity and continue where you left off.
Which path fits depends on how clean the cutoff is and whether the cleared detail survived the conversion, which is exactly what we check before running a Sage 50 to QuickBooks conversion.
What to do before the cutover
- Save a PDF of the last reconciliation report from Sage 50 for every bank and credit card account, plus the register at the cutoff date.
- Note each account’s statement balance and its outstanding checks and deposits in transit.
- Choose a cutoff that lines up with a statement date; it makes the first reconciliation in QuickBooks far simpler.
- After conversion, open the reconciliation screen and confirm the beginning balance before entering new transactions. If you are new to reconciling in QuickBooks, the reconcile basics are worth a quick read first.
If you want to know exactly how reconciliations will behave in your file, send it for a free evaluation. We will examine the reconciliation data, tell you what will carry and what will not, and quote the conversion with no obligation.