How to import your data from Wave or QuickBooks
Moving your books means bringing your accounting history from your old software into BooksGPT, so your reports carry on where the old ones stopped. You can bring the full history, every transaction on every account, or just opening balances: what each account held on the day your BooksGPT books begin.
Either way, BooksGPT checks the numbers against your file before anything posts.
Full history or opening balances?
- Full history (recommended). Your old software's General Ledger lists every transaction it recorded. Import it, and last year's Profit & loss and Balance Sheet match in both systems, so you and your accountant can compare any period.
- Opening balances only. A QuickBooks Desktop General Ledger run As of one date, or a Wave Trial Balance, lists each account's balance on one date, with no transactions. It is quicker, but your past reports stay in your old software, and adding history later means starting over. The year's income and expenses so far land in Opening Balance Equity as one amount. From other software, set each opening balance by hand.
Pick the day BooksGPT takes over
Your old books and your bank connection both know about the same payments. If both bring them in, each one counts twice. So every day belongs to one of them: your old books up to a cutover date, and BooksGPT with your bank feed after it.
- The easiest order: import your books first, then connect your bank.
- Already connected? With QuickBooks (the connection or a Desktop file) or a file BooksGPT reads itself, leave the bank transactions on those dates unapproved, and they wait On hold as possible copies.
- Any other General Ledger file stops the day before your feed's first transaction, whatever you approved. The card fills in that Import through date, and a QuickBooks Online file must be exported to end there. Nothing after it imports, so you record later activity in BooksGPT.
Find the guide for your old software
- QuickBooks Online: connect your company and import, or upload a General Ledger file. See Import from QuickBooks Online.
- QuickBooks Desktop: export the General Ledger with Dates set to All, or a balances-only report. See Import from QuickBooks Desktop.
- Wave: the accounting.csv file from Wave's Data Export, or Account Transactions one year at a time. See Import from Wave.
- Xero: the General Ledger Detail report, run on Accrual. See Import your books from Xero.
- Quicken: one QIF file with every account. See Import from Quicken.
- Sage, ZipBooks or another accounting app: export the General Ledger and drop it on Import. See Import your books from a file.
- Only bank or card history, as a CSV or Excel download: see Import a CSV from any bank or app.
- PDF bank statements: see Upload a bank statement.
- No old software, starting fresh: see Set an account's opening balance.
Where to drop the file
- Open All pages in the left sidebar, then click Setup and Import.
- Drop your export on Drop your books export here, or use the matching card under Other ways in.
- Read the preview, then import.
If BooksGPT does not know your file's layout, it reads the file itself, with no preview, and checks every account against it before importing. If it cannot finish, our team does.
Not sure which file you have? Click Ask Copilot on the Import page, or drop the file in the Copilot chat, and it works out where it goes.
Check that your books came over
Open your Balance sheet and Trial balance in BooksGPT and the same reports in your old software, on the same date. When they match, your history is in. Then connect your bank.
If something goes wrong
- The wrong file went in, or the numbers are off. See Redo or undo an import.
- Bank transactions on those dates are already approved. Follow what the import card says, or write to support@booksgpt.ai.
- You cannot find an export for your software. Write to support@booksgpt.ai with its name, and we will tell you which report to use.
Updated on: 18/10/2026
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