How do I switch from QuickBooks to MONA?

Quick answer: Export your lists, reports, and attachments from QuickBooks Online (the Export data tool under the Settings gear gives you one ZIP), import your customers and vendors into MONA through Clients, then Import CSV, rebuild your billable services in Services, then go to Finance, open Books, and click Turn on Books from a cutover date. From that date MONA handles invoices, payment links, retainers, time and expenses, the bank feed, the ledger, and the monthly close pack for your accountant. Everything before the cutover date stays in QuickBooks, which stays readable for a year after you cancel.

MONA does not import your transaction history, so the switch works like changing accountants at the start of a quarter: pick a clean date, start fresh, and keep the old books for reference. Most studios spend about an hour on the whole move.

Does MONA replace QuickBooks for an interior design studio?

For the studio side of the business, yes. MONA Books is a double-entry ledger with a chart of accounts built for design studios, fed by your bank through a live bank feed. Invoices you send from a project post to the ledger when they go out and when they are paid. Client deposits are held as retainers. Time and expenses are logged against projects. At month end MONA produces a close pack your accountant can use directly.

What MONA does not do: payroll, sales tax and income tax filing, 1099s, and inventory accounting for a retail shop. Those stay with your accountant or your payroll provider, and the close pack gives them what they need.

Before you start

• Do not cancel first. A cancelled QuickBooks Online subscription is read-only for one year. You can still export, but you cannot record a payment, send an invoice, or fix an entry. Collect open invoices and export everything while the account is live.
• Pick a cutover date. The first day of a month or quarter. MONA Books starts from that date. There is no opening-balance import, so anything earlier is answered from your QuickBooks exports.
• Money surfaces are owner, admin, and Accountant only. In MONA, Finance, Books, the bank feed, MONA Payments, and the QuickBooks connection are hidden from regular members. Do this move as the workspace owner or an admin.

Step 1: Export everything from QuickBooks Online

Start with the one-shot export, then pull the specific lists you will import into MONA.

Everything at once. Click the Settings gear, then under Tools choose Export data. Pick a reason and click Continue. On the Reports tab pick the widest date range in the dropdown. On the Lists tab switch on every list. Click Export to Excel, then OK. QuickBooks builds one ZIP of Excel files: the posting reports (Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, General Ledger) and the lists (Customers, Vendors, Employees, Chart of Accounts, Products and Services). Estimates, purchase orders, customer statements, and recurring templates are exported separately from their own pages.

Customers. Open Customers (under Sales, or Customer Hub in the newer navigation), click the Export icon next to the Print icon, and choose Export to Excel. You get Name, Company, Address, Phone number, Email Address, Customer type, Currency, Balance, and Notes. This is the file you import into MONA Clients.

Vendors. The Vendor Contact List report gives you separate columns for each field. Open Reports, search for Vendor Contact List, click Customize, expand Rows/Columns, and tick Email, Phone, Address, City, State, ZIP, and Account number. Click Run report, then the Export icon, then Export to Excel.

Products and services. Open Products & services under Sales, choose Run reports from the More menu, and use Export to Excel. QuickBooks does not export SKU, income accounts, or every rate in one file, so also keep the Products and Services sheet from the Export data ZIP.

Open invoices and sales history. Open Reports and run three reports, each exported with the Export icon, then Export to Excel: Open Invoices for what clients still owe you, Invoice List for every invoice by date, and Sales by Product/Service Detail for line-item history. If a report opens in Excel with data missing, click Enable Editing to leave protected view.

Attachments. Click the Settings gear, then under Lists choose Attachments. Select the files on the page, click Batch actions, and choose Export. QuickBooks exports a ZIP sorted into folders by where each file was attached. A batch covers only the files on one page and about 10 MB, so page through the list and repeat until every receipt, bill, and signed proposal is down.

Step 2: Import your customers and vendors into MONA

Go to Clients and click Import CSV. Choose the QuickBooks customer export. MONA reads the header row and suggests where each column goes: Name to the contact name, Company to the company, Phone number to phone, Email Address to email, Address to the first address line, Notes to notes. Leave Currency, Balance, and Attachment unmapped. QuickBooks' Customer type column is your own label (Residential, Commercial), not the kind of contact, so set it to Tags if you want to keep it, or leave it unmapped.

Before you upload, add a column named type and fill it with client on every row so MONA files each one as a client. Contacts with a matching email update the existing record instead of creating a duplicate, so it is safe to re-run with a corrected file. Up to 2,000 contacts per import.

Do the same with the Vendor Contact List export, with the type column set to vendor. MONA suggests the Vendor column as the company name. If your file has no separate contact name column, change that one to Name in the mapping step so each vendor gets a record. When a vendor's company matches one MONA already knows, the person is linked to it.

Step 3: Rebuild your products and services

QuickBooks keeps one Products and Services list. MONA splits it in two, because they are priced differently.

Services (design hours, consultation, installation, anything billed by the hour or as a flat fee) go in Services. Open it from the sidebar, click to add a service, and enter the name, rate, unit (hour, flat, square foot, linear foot, or day), tax, and optionally the subcontractor or teammate who performs it. A service can then be picked when you log time or price a schedule line. For a long list, drop the QuickBooks export into a chat and say:

Create a service for each row in this spreadsheet, using the name, rate, and description.

MONA creates them and shows you the list. Do it in batches of thirty or so if the list is long.

Products (goods you resell: furniture, lighting, rugs) live on project schedules, where each line carries the vendor, price, cost price, and product link. If you keep a reusable catalog of pieces, the Products library saves a product once from its URL and drops it into any project. The Products library is a Studio plan feature; schedules are on every plan.

Step 4: Turn on Books and connect your bank

Go to Finance and open the Books tab. Click Turn on Books. MONA seeds a chart of accounts built for design studios (client deposits as a liability, project cost of goods, studio overhead, and so on). You can rename or add accounts under the Accounts tab. There is nothing to import here; the ledger is empty on purpose and starts filling from your cutover date.

Then go to Settings, then Integrations, and click Connect a bank. MONA uses a bank feed, so you sign in to your bank once and every card and account transaction lands in the Books inbox a few times a day. From the inbox you or MONA categorize each transaction, match it to a project, and mark it billable when a client should be charged. Nothing posts to the ledger until you confirm it.

Pick the cutover date before the first transaction arrives. Transactions dated before it are yours to ignore or archive; everything from that date forward is what your accountant reconciles in MONA.

Step 5: Move your billing

Invoices already sent from QuickBooks. Let clients pay them in QuickBooks before you cancel. Once cancelled, QuickBooks cannot record the payment. If an invoice will still be open on your cutover date, void it in QuickBooks and re-issue it from MONA.

New invoices. In MONA an invoice comes from a project. Open the project, or ask in chat:

Create an invoice for the approved living room items on the Harper project.

MONA drafts the invoice from the schedule lines, renders a branded PDF, and shows it to you before anything is sent. Connect MONA Payments in Settings if you want a card or bank transfer link on every invoice; the invoice marks itself paid when the money clears and the payment posts to Books. If a client pays by check or Zelle, mark the invoice paid and MONA emails a receipt.

Retainers. Client deposits in MONA are held as retainers and drawn down as you invoice. On the cutover date record the balance of each open retainer so the drawdowns line up.

Time and expenses. Go to Time to log hours against a project and a service. Expenses arrive through the bank feed: in the Books inbox, assign the transaction to a project and mark it billable. Logged time and billable expenses can be invoiced from the project when you are ready to bill.

Step 6: Invite your accountant

Go to Settings, then Team, invite them by email, and choose the Accountant role. The seat is read-only and only sees the Finance surfaces: the overview, the money table, and Books. They cannot change anything.

At month end, open Books and generate the close pack. It exports six CSV files (trial balance, general ledger, profit and loss, balance sheet, project profitability, and accounts receivable) that load into whatever your accountant uses for tax work. Closed periods are locked; corrections go in as adjusting entries in the next period.

Step 7: File the QuickBooks history in MONA, then cancel

Upload the Export data ZIP contents, the three invoice reports, and the attachment folders to your Library. MONA files each by type and can read them in chat, so "what did we bill the Harper project in 2025" is still one question away after QuickBooks is gone.

When your open invoices are collected, your bank is connected, and your cutover date has passed, cancel QuickBooks. Sign in to Intuit Account Manager at accounts.intuit.com, select Products & billing, then your company name, find QuickBooks Online, and click Cancel. If you bought it through the Apple App Store or Google Play, cancel there instead. Your data stays readable for one year (90 days for a trial). If you keep any other Intuit subscription on the same login, read-only access continues indefinitely.

Not ready to switch all at once? Connect QuickBooks to MONA

You can run both for a while. Go to Settings, then Integrations, and click Connect on the QuickBooks card. MONA then reads your books: ask what a client has paid to date and what they still owe, pull invoice history for any client or date range, or see hours and billable amounts per person. MONA can also draft an invoice from a project and, after you approve it, send it through QuickBooks so your client gets the invoice and Pay now link from QuickBooks, then track when it is paid. The connection is read-only for everything else. MONA never changes your books and never sends a draft.

Studios usually connect first, run MONA Books alongside for a quarter, and cancel QuickBooks once the accountant is comfortable.

What does not carry over as-is

Transaction history, journal entries, bank reconciliations, and closed periods stay in QuickBooks; MONA Books starts from your cutover date. Invoices, estimates, and purchase orders come over as Excel and PDF for reference, not as live records. Recurring invoice templates, custom form styles, sales tax settings, and classes and locations have no MONA equivalent to import; recurring invoices are a task you can hand to a MONA agent instead. Payroll, tax filing, and 1099s are not part of MONA at all.

Want a hand?

Every plan includes a setup session. Book 30 minutes at calendly.com/mona-justin/30min and we will pick your cutover date, import your clients and vendors, and connect your bank together on a Google Meet. Switching from a design platform too? See How do I switch from Houzz Pro to MONA? and Can I bring my projects over from DesignFiles?. For the invoice and purchase order flow, see Invoices and purchase orders as PDFs, tracked in a database.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import my QuickBooks data into MONA? Partly. Your customer and vendor lists import into MONA Clients as CSV. Your products and services can be recreated in the Services catalog, by hand or by handing the export to MONA in chat. Historical transactions and invoices do not import as live records. MONA Books starts from a cutover date, and your QuickBooks history stays readable in QuickBooks for a year after you cancel and in your MONA Library as files.

How do I export everything from QuickBooks Online? Click the Settings gear, then under Tools choose Export data. Pick the widest date range on the Reports tab, switch on every list on the Lists tab, and click Export to Excel. You get one ZIP of Excel files. Attachments are separate: click the Settings gear, choose Attachments, select the files, and use Batch actions, then Export, one page at a time.

Does MONA replace QuickBooks for an interior design studio? For the studio side, yes. MONA handles client invoices and payment links, retainers, estimates, time and expenses, a bank feed, a double-entry ledger with a design-studio chart of accounts, a monthly close, and a CPA export. Payroll, tax filing, and 1099s are not in MONA, so those stay with your accountant or payroll provider.

Will my transaction history come over from QuickBooks? No. MONA has no opening-balance or history import yet. Pick a cutover date, usually the first of a month or quarter, and run MONA Books from there. Give your accountant the QuickBooks exports for earlier periods. QuickBooks keeps your data read-only for one year after you cancel, so you can still look things up.

Can my accountant still work with me if I switch to MONA? Yes. Invite them from Settings, then Team, with the Accountant role. It is read-only and covers only the Finance surfaces. Each month you can export a close pack with a trial balance, general ledger, profit and loss, balance sheet, project profitability, and accounts receivable as CSV files for their own software.

Can I keep QuickBooks and use MONA at the same time? Yes. Connect QuickBooks Online from Settings, then Integrations. MONA can then answer what a client has paid, pull invoice history and billable hours from your books, and send invoices you approve through QuickBooks. It never changes your books and never sends a draft. Many studios run this way for a few months before switching fully.

What happens to invoices I already sent from QuickBooks? Collect them before you cancel, because a cancelled QuickBooks account is read-only and cannot record a payment. If an invoice will still be open on your cutover date, re-issue it from MONA with a payment link so the client pays you there. Retainers work the same way: record the balance in MONA on the cutover date.

How long do I have my QuickBooks data after I cancel? One year of read-only access for a paid subscription, and 90 days if you cancel during a trial. You can export to Excel during that time but cannot add transactions or send invoices. Export before you cancel anyway, so the files are in your MONA Library on day one.

Do I need the Studio plan to move my books to MONA? No. Clients, Services, Finance, Books, the bank feed, MONA Payments, and the Accountant seat are on every plan. Finance and Books are visible to the workspace owner, admins, and the Accountant seat, not to regular members.