Switching from QuickBooks

QuickBooks India closed on 30 April 2023.

If you are only finding this out now, you are not late to anything — you are one of a steady stream of people who go looking for QuickBooks India and discover Intuit left. This page is the short version of what happened, what to do with an old export if you still have one, and how to get your client book into something built for GST, TDS and 44ADA rather than adapted to them.

The whole move

Three steps, and only one of them takes real time.

Most of a switch is deciding to switch. The mechanical part is a CSV and a settings screen.

  1. Find your 2023 export

    Intuit gave everyone an exporter before the cut-off, so the file is usually sitting in a Downloads folder or a Drive backup. If you never exported, skip to step 2 — you will start clean, which after three years is the right answer anyway.

  2. Bring your client book in

    Clients → Import, drop the CSV. Column names are matched automatically and anything we cannot place is listed before you commit, so nothing is dropped silently.

  3. Continue your invoice series

    Settings → Invoicing → Next invoice number. Set it to carry on from your last real invoice so your financial-year series stays consecutive, which is what CGST Rule 46(b) actually requires.

If you still have the file

What the QuickBooks export looked like.

The export window closed with the service on 30 April 2023, so there is no live click-path to give you any more — anything you read that tells you to open Customers → Customer List today is describing a product that no longer exists. What you may have is the CSV the Intuit exporter produced: chart of accounts, lists and transactions. The list you want is customers.

QuickBooks customer export columns mapped to HourSlip fields
QuickBooks customer exportHourSlipNotes
Customer / CompanyClient nameThe only column we require.
EmailEmailEncrypted at rest once imported.
Phone / MobilePhone
GSTINGSTINAlso settles whether the client is domestic — see below.
Billing StateStateName, 2-digit GST code, or a 2-letter code like MH all work.
Billing CityCity
CountryCountryIndia / IN / IND all read as domestic.
CurrencyCurrencyBlank is treated as INR.

Column names do not have to match exactly. The importer knows the common spellings, and the preview screen lists every header it could not place before you commit — so a column you care about can never disappear quietly.

Worth knowing first

Four things that actually bite.

None of these are QuickBooks problems. They are Indian-invoicing problems that a tool built elsewhere never had to think about, and they are the reason a migration goes wrong quietly rather than loudly.

Your invoice series has to stay consecutive

Under CGST Rule 46(b) an invoice number is a consecutive serial, unique for the financial year, limited to 16 characters and to letters, numerals, hyphen and slash. Restarting at 0001 mid-year because a new tool would not let you set the number is a real compliance problem, not a cosmetic one. Set the next number and prefix in Settings before you raise anything.

A missing state silently changes the tax

State decides whether a supply is intra-state (CGST + SGST) or inter-state (IGST). A client whose state did not survive the import does not throw an error — they just get taxed the wrong way from then on. The importer now warns per row when it cannot read a state instead of leaving a blank.

A GSTIN outranks the currency on the invoice

A GST-registered Indian client who happens to bill in USD is still a domestic supply. Treating them as foreign produces a zero-rated export invoice for something that owed GST — and that document feeds GSTR-1. If a row has a GSTIN, it is domestic, whatever the currency column says.

Your old records still have to exist

Keep the QuickBooks exports. Income-tax record retention runs six years from the end of the relevant assessment year, and your past invoices are not coming across — they stay where they were filed. Bring the client book, leave the history.

Why this one

Built for the Indian side, not adapted to it.

QuickBooks left because India was a hard market to serve well from outside it. The replacement worth having is one where GST is not a plugin.

GST that is native

CGST/SGST vs IGST decided from place of supply, GSTR-1 and 3B exports, bill of supply handled properly for composition, plain invoices when you are not registered.

The part nobody else does

TDS across ten sections with 26AS reconciliation, advance-tax scheduling, old-vs-new regime and 44ADA. Invoicing tools stop at the invoice; the tax year does not.

Priced in rupees

No currency conversion on your own software bill, and a free plan that is a real taste rather than a trial clock. Why HourSlip →

Import your clients, set your next invoice number, and raise the first one the same day.
Switch from QuickBooks

Bring the client book. Leave the history where it was filed.

Import the CSV, continue your invoice series, and carry on. If you would rather not do it alone, say so on the way in and we will set it up with you.

Founding cohort: free Pro through beta. No card needed.