Import IIF files into QuickBooks Online

This is a great way for QuickBooks Desktop users who have resisted moving to QuickBooks Online because of lack of support for IIF file imports to make the move and avoid the unnecessary data entry burden.

The IIF file format for importing data into QuickBooks Desktop has been around almost as long QuickBooks and is widely used as a way to get transaction and list data into QuickBooks.  It has come as a surprise to many that Intuit does not support the IIF file format for QuickBooks Online and has no plans to add that either.  Intuit does not promote IIF and even on its official support page warns users that “creating .iif files from scratch or adapting data from another program is technically complex and may be difficult if you don’t have experience formatting delimited text files..” .

For the many users of IIF import files, who are now using QBO this is a significant data entry problem.

So I was excited to hear that Zed Axis, an application that I use in my own business and one that I have reviewed several times before in this blog is able to import IIF files into QuickBooks Online.

I will run you through the steps of how you can do that:

Here is a sample IIF file that contains some invoices, this could be any other type of transaction but I am using invoices because it is one of the most common import types.  I am going to show you how it is possible to get this IIF data into QuickBooks Online.

First step is open Zed Axis and connect to QuickBooks Online, then I open the IIF file in Zed Axis and I can see the content of the IIF file in the preview panel that a lot easier to read

Now the next steps is to create a mapping between the columns in the IIF file and the relevant QuickBooks Online fields.  Select the option to create a new map, and start the mapping process

Once I have mapped I can reuse that map for subsequent imports of the same IIF file, now I can import the data into QuickBooks Online.

And opening QBO I can review the invoices that I have just imported from the IIF file

Axis has smart features like creating Customer, Product or Services if they are not already in QBO, the ability to update existing transactions, and skip if already entered, so a host of features that will make data entry as easy as it should be.

Zed Axis is has a 30 day free trial you can download from here, they also offer free live support during the trial period so if you get stuck they can help you to work out any issues.