Written by 6:00 am QuickBooks, Software Tips & Advice

How We Imported Prior Year’s Transactions of a Hotel In Excel Into QuickBooks

We had a meeting with one of our new clients who runs an established business in the hospitality industry here in Lagos, they needed an accounting software that will track all sales transactions on room booking, and bar sales at the back end office. Although, they already have a hotel management software for front-end sales, the major accounting features required to get necessary financial reports available were still missing out. So, ultimately, you would expect that the only solution is to import all daily sales transactions from the hotel software into QuickBooks which was our recommended path. But here is the challenge, the CFO also wanted all their past transactions in the last three (3) to be keyed into the accounting software so that they won’t miss out some transactions for reference purposes, here are what we did:

  • We designed an IIF excel spreadsheet that will import all sales transactions into QuickBooks 

An IIF excel file is QuickBooks’ recommended spreadsheet format for importing bulk transactions, which could run for 5-10 years, by mapping each account heads and types into their necessary chart of accounts so that when each account head is imported, they are rightly reported in their financials. For instance, when we imported sales transactions, we expected the income heads and their corresponding accounts which could be cash or receivables, depending on whether cash was paid or not, to be displayed in the profit or loss account. 

  • We downloaded the bank statement for the past years & imported into QuickBooks

While the IIF file handles the sales side of the prior year’s transactions, the bank statement shows all the payment made by their customers via direct transfer or POS and the expenses incurred so far, so it’s expected that by the time we import all banking transactions, they should have their prior year’s transactions in QuickBooks and when anyone reviews it, it would look like they have been using QuickBooks since inception.

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For over 5 years, we have implemented QuickBooks and Sage 50 for several companies under Retail, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Real Estate & Construction, Travels, Hospitality,Legal, Co-operatives, NGOs, Financial & Service Sectors.
  • Mbaire Services Nigeria Ltd(Construction)
  • Chisco Transport Limited(Transport)
  • Lounge38(Hotel and Bars)
  • CTRL System Technologies Limited(Procurements)
  • Aristokrat 360 Limited(Creative & Media Agency)
  • Alpha Pharmacy (Health Care & Supermarket)
  • Ericsson Nigeria Multipurpose Co-operative Society (Co-operatives)
  • Fastanet Limited (ICT and Security)
  • Britanic Maritime (Maritime Service)
  • CEO Business Limited (Salary Advance, Credit Finance and Loan)
  • OneHealth Pharmacy (Health Care)
  • Widdi Pharmacy (Health Care)
  • Olpharm Pharmacy (Health Care & Distributor)
  • Hawkes Legal(Legal)
  • Kantessa Limited(Fashion Store)
  • OPI Nigeria International Limited (Oil & Gas Servicing)
  • Zenilum Company Limited (Oil & Gas Servicing)
  • Extol Security Services Limited (Security and Guard Services)
  • Lilygate Hotel(Hospitality)
  • Benstel Nigeria Limited(Bottle Water Production & Distribution)
  • Paraclete Nigeria Limited (Bottle Water Production & Distribution)
  • Lakia Construction Limited (Real Estate Development)
  • Josien Holdings Limited(Distribution)
  • Aisha Buhari Foundation (Futured Assured)(NGO)
  • Doheney HR Services(HR)
  • Insights Limited(Health Consultant)
  • Biddel Oil & Gas Limited (Oil & Gas)
  • System Intelligenz Limited(Contractor)
  • MagTech Information Security (IT)
  • Infusion Cakes Nigeria (Bakery)
  • SCERA Nigeria (NGO)
  • M.D School (Private School)
  • Travel Options (Travels)
  • Logos Travel Support & Solutions Ltd (Travels)
  • Melcurt Nigeria Limited (Oil and Gas Engineering and Pipeline Construction)
  • Starlight Nigeria (Retail)
  • Temple Private School (Education)
  • Value Mart Supermarket (Retail)
  • Transweb Bureau De Change (Financial Service)
  • Vektro Food Limited (Manufacturing & Retails)
  • Orient Petroleum PLC (Oil & Gas)
  • Plus More

I have already shared a guide on how we imported payments from school management portal into QuickBooks – This is not different from what we deployed in the hotel except that we added a new column that tracks expenses (cheque/withdrawal).

Like I said in that post, integration of third-party applications with QuickBooks is seamless on the latest version of at most 2-3 years. So, if you are still using an outdated version, you might need to upgrade before we implement.

While these tips can help hotel get started faster, it is still adapted to businesses in other industries. If you have prior years’ transactions in excel and looking for a solution that will help you push them into an accounting software, feel free to contact our support department, send a mail to info@accountingsoftware.com.ng or call 08105090001

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Last modified: March 24, 2021
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