We have an established business set up in QuickBooks already and our company has recently started doing business in the UK. We now need our QuickBooks system to show the UK transactions separate from the US transactions since UK is in pounds sterling and US is in dollars. We have a UK bank that we use, so there is no conversion factor to contend with if we keep the books separate. How do I do this? Do I set up a "new company" in QuickBooks with the UK chart of accounts? I would want to duplicate everything we have in our US version. Is there a "copy" and "paste" feature to help, or must I enter everything from the ground up? Am I going in the right direction? Also, we will soon be expanding to Germany and France, so I'll need to do the same for those currencies as well.
We have an established business set up in QuickBooks already and our company has recently started doing business in the UK. We now need our QuickBooks system to show the UK transactions separate from the US transactions since UK is in pounds sterling and US is in dollars. We have a UK bank that we use, so there is no conversion factor to contend with if we keep the books separate. How do I do this? Do I set up a "new company" in QuickBooks with the UK chart of accounts? I would want to duplicate everything we have in our US version. Is there a "copy" and "paste" feature to help, or must I enter everything from the ground up? Am I going in the right direction? Also, we will soon be expanding to Germany and France, so I'll need to do the same for those currencies as well.
You can set up another QuickBooks company file for your UK office and you can "export" the Chart of Accounts (and other lists too) from your original file. Then, you can "import" the lists into a new, blank file.
Here is a section from our "Consultant's Reference Guide". It doesn't specifically say it's for your situation, but it could also apply to your company.
Setting Up a New File - Importing Lists from an Old File
There are several situations when starting over with a new company file may be appropriate.
When to set Up a New Company File?
You can export your lists to a special file (called an "iif" file) and then import) the lists into a new, empty company file. Here’s how it works.
1. Start by exporting your lists from your current company file. Choose File>Utilities>Export.
2. Name your export file (e.g. mylists.iif) and click OK to save the file.
3. Now, create a new company file. This time, give the company file a different name than your old file. For example, if the old file is called Academy_.QBW, the new company file could be called Academy2.QBW.
Important: DO NOT give your new company file the same name as your old file. If you do, QuickBooks will delete the old company file and replace it with a new empty company file.
4. To create the new file, choose File>New Company. Then follow the steps through creating a new company file.
Important - On the Chart of Accounts screen, choose No Type so that the new company file will have a blank Chart of Accounts.
5. Give the new company file a different name than your old company file.
6. Then, with the new company file open, import the list file you just exported from your old company file. Choose File>Import and select the file you want to import data from and click OK.
7. When QuickBooks finishes importing your lists, display the Chart of Accounts, Customer list and Vendor list to see that all your lists have been imported into the new file. Now you’re ready to begin entering data into your new company file. However, since all your lists are already set up, you have saved all the work of setting up each Customer, Vendor, Item, Account, etc.
Tip – If you want to create year-to-year comparison reports in your new file, you can enter summarized data into the new file with monthly totals for last year. For example, enter one deposit and one check with the total income and expenses for the each month during the prior year.
If you get an error message when importing the IIF file, you may have to edit it in Excel (any text editor will also work) to eliminate any conflicting data in the IIF file. For more information, see our Consultant's Reference Guide.