ancient file conversion?

October 5, 2022 11:23 PM

Does anybody have a suggestion of a company or resource that could possibly convert my ancient QuickBooks99 file and/or extract the transactions and invoices from it?

I thought of asking an accountant, which I still might do, but that's unlikely to yield fruit, really. I don't think modern QuickBooks is likely to even open the file, and the versions that I know about do not really provide an export function for transactions. QuickBooks/Intuit is kind of infamous for this.

There used to be one or two companies that had their own software for extracting this info; I haven't turned them up lately though.

I'd be happy to have this in a series of CSV files, spreadsheet format, even, as a last resort, reports printed from the software I suppose.

I think my original disk for the software might be gone :(

Thanks in advance :)

posted by amtho to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Do you have anything that runs ancient windows and CDs? Here's a like-new copy of Quickbooks99 but it's nearly $50 after shipping. (There was a cheaper one but it was missing its key, I'm guessing it needs its key.)
posted by aniola at 11:32 PM on October 5, 2022

What is the file extenstion? GnuCash might be able to import it. If that works, you could do it while running a Linux distro from a USB stick.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:45 PM on October 5, 2022

Response by poster: It's .QBW, but there seem to be ancillary files named things like QDATA.QDB, QDATA.QEL, QDATA.QMD, and QDATA.QSD. None of them are readable text.

I do have the ability (I believe) to install ancient software, but am interested in alternatives.
posted by amtho at 11:49 PM on October 5, 2022

Response by poster: The qif format mentioned by GnuCash, if I remember correctly, generally just includes client and/or account lists - lists of things that aren't transactions.

That's how they get you.
posted by amtho at 11:50 PM on October 5, 2022

If you have a copy of the software, I'm pretty sure there is a way to export transactions to CSV files, but you can only do ~32,000 at a time. Invoices should be exportable to IIF. In either case getting the data into something more modern is a challenge, but it is possible to get (most of) it into GnuCash. GnuCash only directly imports from Quicken, not QuickBooks.

At one point Intuit did offer a service for importing old QuickBooks files into QuickBooks Online, but I'm not sure they ever went back as far as QB99. Accountants often keep old versions around for a while, but 99 is again probably too far back.
posted by wierdo at 11:50 PM on October 5, 2022

I wrote a bunch of stuff about getting intermediate versions to upgrade your file to the current version, but apparently the Data Services team at Intuit can in fact do the conversion for you, even on files that old. It looks like it would cost either $50 or $250. I definitely couldn't do it for $50 and probably not even for $250, so it seems like that's your best option if you're content getting the file usable with a current version of QuickBooks.
posted by wierdo at 12:12 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Can the current version of QuickBooks export transactions and invoices to literally ANYTHING else not made by Intuit?
posted by amtho at 12:23 AM on October 6, 2022

If you want to use a different accounting package, there are others that can import (most) data from recent QBWs. Sage 50 being one example.

If you just want a record of old transactions and invoices the easiest thing would probably be to run Windows XP in a VirtualBox VM, install QB99 in that, and just use QB99 whenever you need to reference the old stuff.

It's impossible to say what the best course of action is without knowing exactly what it is you want to do going forward.
posted by wierdo at 2:25 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

My accountant uses versions of various accounting packages that allow them to open all sorts of outdated files. We use an old, old version of MYOB for Mac and they deal with that.
posted by mewsic at 2:36 AM on October 6, 2022

I use a Canadian version of the program dating back to 2016. The company file format has a qbw extension and I would be happy to give a stab at exporting your data.
posted by delphic at 6:15 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Another option may be a "cloud-provided" version of QuickBooks. Open your old file in there, export to Excel. You can "rent" Quickbooks for a small amount per month, cheaper than buying a full version. I've seen it made available at apps4rent.com
posted by kschang at 11:43 AM on October 6, 2022