Most companies start looking at a QuickBooks to NetSuite migration when the books stop keeping up with the business: a second entity, a warehouse, or a revenue model QuickBooks was never built for. At Oakridge Global Consulting we run these migrations with an in-house offshore NetSuite team of functional consultants, SuiteScript developers and support specialists. This is the plan we follow, along with the parts we see companies underestimate.
Signs you have outgrown QuickBooks
Growth alone is a poor reason to move. The time to move is when QuickBooks starts costing your team hours every month. Common signs:
- You consolidate two or more entities in a spreadsheet at month end.
- Inventory lives in a separate tool and is reconciled by hand.
- Approvals for bills and purchase orders happen over email.
- Your controller exports to Excel to build every management report.
- Revenue recognition is a manual journal each month.
If three or more of these sound familiar, start planning the move.
Clean the data before you move it
A migration copies whatever is in QuickBooks, including the mess, so the first weeks go on clean-up before any configuration starts.
- Merge duplicate customers and vendors, and close the inactive ones.
- Reconcile every bank and credit card account to the cut-over date.
- Clear old open invoices and bills that will never be paid.
- Review the chart of accounts. Most QuickBooks charts have grown sideways over the years, with accounts doing the job that classes or departments should do.
- Agree how much history to bring across. Usually that is open transactions plus monthly summary trial balances. Ten years of transaction lines rarely earn their place in the new system.
Design NetSuite around how you will work
Before anyone loads data, our functional consultant maps your processes to NetSuite records and agrees with you:
- Subsidiaries, if you have more than one legal entity.
- Departments, classes and locations, and what each one will be used to report.
- Approval routing for purchase orders, vendor bills and journals.
- Item records, and whether inventory is tracked by location or lot.
- The saved searches and reports your management team will read each month.
Spend the most time on segments. If you change departments or classes after go-live, you have to re-map your history.
Migrate, then reconcile
We load data in a fixed order: chart of accounts, subsidiaries and segments, customers and vendors, items, opening balances, then open transactions. After each load we tie NetSuite back to QuickBooks.
- The trial balance by month must match to the cent.
- Open AR and AP aging must match by customer and vendor.
- Inventory quantity and value must match by item and location.
If a number does not tie, we stop and fix it before the next load, because a difference carried forward gets harder to trace with every load that follows.
Already part way through a migration and the numbers will not tie? We can review your account and recommend a clear plan. Request a NetSuite health check.
Test with real transactions
Your team should run a full month in a sandbox before go-live. That means real invoices, real bills, a payment run, a bank reconciliation and a month-end close. Our SuiteScript developers use this stage to test any customization, such as an invoice template, a custom approval workflow or an integration with your CRM or payment provider.
Go-live and the first close
Pick a cut-over date at the start of a month. Freeze QuickBooks for new entries, load the final balances and switch. Your first close in NetSuite will take longer than usual, so plan for it. Our support specialists work alongside your team during that close, answering questions and fixing roles, forms and searches as they come up.
Why an offshore NetSuite team suits a migration
A migration needs an accountant who understands your books, a consultant who knows NetSuite configuration and a developer for scripts and integrations, often in the same week. Hiring all three in-house for a few months is hard. An offshore NetSuite team gives you all three. We also work while your US team is offline, so data loads and fixes are usually ready by your morning.
If you are comparing providers, our guide to hiring an offshore NetSuite consultant lists the questions to ask and the red flags to watch for.
Scope and fees are agreed with each client after an initial consultation, billed in USD with no hidden charges. You can work with us on hourly support, a monthly retainer or with a dedicated accountant. Our NetSuite consulting services page sets out what each covers.
Planning a QuickBooks to NetSuite migration? Oakridge Global Consulting can review your current books and set out a migration plan with you. Schedule a consultation and we will take it from there.