Moving away from QuickBooks? Migrate everything -- your full invoice and bill history with every payment properly linked. Other migration tools leave this behind. Kantivo preserves it all.
Try It FreeImporting a chart of accounts is table stakes. Kantivo goes further by bringing over your entire transaction history -- every invoice, customer payment, vendor bill, and bill payment -- with correct matching so your A/R and A/P balances carry forward accurately.
Your QuickBooks Item List comes across as real product/service records. Your Class List arrives as actual classes on Kantivo's built-in tracking dimension. And every invoice and bill line item is linked to the matching Item — so item-level reports, inventory movement, and P&L by Class all keep working on imported data.
As far as we know, no other QuickBooks alternative does all of this in one free in-app step.
Items.IIF export. Service, inventory, non-inventory, group, discount-percentage, and inventory assembly items all map to Kantivo's matching product types, with income accounts auto-resolved against your imported chart.Classes.IIF drops into Kantivo's built-in Class tracking dimension. Sub-classes preserve their parent hierarchy.The main reason businesses hesitate to change accounting platforms is the fear of abandoning years of financial records. Meticulously organized accounts, open customer balances, vendor payment histories -- walking away from all of that means rebuilding from zero. Kantivo's import engine eliminates that risk entirely.
Generate your "Transaction List by Customer" and "Transaction List by Vendor" reports and save them as CSV files
Drag your export files into the import wizard -- it processes multiple files simultaneously
Intelligent auto-mapping aligns your accounts automatically. Review the preview, then confirm.
Account numbers, names, types, and parent-child hierarchies all transfer intact. Sub-accounts remain properly nested.
Contact details, addresses, and payment terms carry over. Records are auto-generated from your transaction data.
Service, inventory, non-inventory, group, discount, and assembly items all land as real Kantivo product records — with income accounts, costs, prices, and reorder points preserved.
Your full QuickBooks Class List — including sub-classes — arrives as actual classes on Kantivo's tracking dimension. Class-based reports keep working from day one.
Full A/R continuity: Each invoice with its line items and every associated payment linked to the right document. Open balances are computed on import. Invoice lines also resolve to imported Items.
Full A/P continuity: Every bill with its expense allocations and each payment matched to the correct obligation. Outstanding vendor balances are immediately visible. Bill lines link to imported Items.
When your Phase 3 Transaction Detail export includes the Class column, every line is tagged with the matching class automatically. P&L by Class works on imported data — no manual re-tagging.
We checked what the major QuickBooks alternatives actually let you bring across from QuickBooks Desktop — natively, in-app, without paying for a third-party migration service. Here is what we found in May 2026:
| Software | Accounts | Cust / Vend | Items | Classes | Bills + Invoices with line→Item link | How |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kantivo (this product) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Native IIF + CSV, free, in-app |
| Xero | ✓ | ✓ | Up to 6,000 | Only by support request | Free first 2 yrs / $250+ beyond | Jet Convert (free with limits) |
| Wave | Manual CSV | Manual CSV | No inventory feature | No classes feature | Manual CSV, ~1,000-line cap | No QB import — manual only |
| Zoho Books | ✓ via CSV | ✓ via CSV | ✓ via CSV | Manual re-tag all transactions as Reporting Tags | CSV, no line→item link | All manual CSV → re-map |
| FreshBooks | Easy Switch (paid) | Easy Switch (paid) | No inventory in product | No classes in product | Easy Switch (paid) | Paid 3rd-party (MMC Convert) |
| Sage 50 | Not included in import | ✓ via IIF | ✓ via IIF | Not supported | Limited | Native IIF, missing chart |
| Odoo | Paid connector | Paid connector | Paid connector | Not standard | Paid connector | Paid module from App Store |
Comparison reflects publicly documented behaviour of each vendor's native import paths as of May 2026. We will update this page as competitors close the gaps. If you spot something out of date, let us know.
Without transaction-level migration, you would either re-enter every invoice and bill by hand or start with a flat opening balance that erases all historical context. Kantivo gives you real aging reports, detailed customer and vendor histories, and a complete audit trail starting on day one.
The import engine identifies QuickBooks account classifications and assigns them to the corresponding Kantivo categories automatically -- Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income, and Expenses. You can review and adjust every mapping before committing, so nothing lands in the wrong place.
The majority of imports finish within a few minutes. Larger files containing thousands of transactions may require additional time.
Yes. Account numbers from QuickBooks transfer exactly as they are. You can rename or renumber them afterward if needed.
Any edition capable of exporting CSV or IIF files is supported -- QuickBooks Desktop (all versions), QuickBooks Online, and QuickBooks for Mac.
Absolutely. You can import just the chart of accounts, only customers, only vendors, or any combination that suits your needs. Items and Classes tiles in Phase 1 are optional too — upload them only if you use them.
Upload classes first. Kantivo tags each transaction line with its class as the Phase 3 import runs, so the classes need to already exist in the company. If you forget, no harm done — re-import the Class List in Phase 1 and re-run Phase 3 to tag the remainder.
In QuickBooks Desktop, run the report, click Customize Report, go to the Display tab, and check Class in the columns list. Same for the Item column on Transaction List by Customer / Vendor reports. Re-export, re-upload, and Kantivo will tag everything.
Begin your free 30-day trial. QuickBooks import is included with every plan.