CopyMyBooks
For accountants and bookkeepers
Try a cleanup on a copy of the books first
Some changes are hard to undo in QuickBooks Online. CopyMyBooks copies the real company into a free Intuit sandbox, so you can rehearse the change on the same customers, accounts and transactions, see what the reports do, and only then make it for real.
- The sandbox is free from Intuit. No second QuickBooks subscription.
- The real company is only read: nothing you do in the copy reaches it.
- We don't keep the books: they're deleted 60 minutes after a copy, never more than 24 hours. Database backups expire on their own later.
- Start over any time by copying again.
Changes worth rehearsing
- Reorganizing the chart of accounts: merging accounts, making sub-accounts, renaming and inactivating, then reading the reports that come out.
- Reclassifying a year of transactions to new accounts, classes or locations.
- Merging duplicate customers, vendors or products, which QuickBooks can't undo.
- Turning on class or location tracking and trying how you'd assign them.
- A batch of adjusting journal entries before year-end, to see the effect on the balance sheet and profit and loss.
- Showing a client what their books would look like after the cleanup you're proposing.
How it works
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Create a free sandbox, once
A sandbox is a QuickBooks Online test company Intuit gives anyone with a free developer account. No coding: here's how.
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Connect the client's company
If you're an admin of it, connect it yourself. If not, send the client a link: they approve on Intuit's own screen and choose what every copy must hide.
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Copy, then work in the sandbox
Choose the dates and what to copy. Turn on starting balances and the sandbox starts from the real company's balances on the day before your first date. Then open the sandbox in QuickBooks and make your changes.
Every step in detail: how to copy a QuickBooks Online company into a sandbox.
Know the limits
- It's a rehearsal. Changes made in the sandbox don't flow back to the real company; you make them there yourself once you're happy.
- Settings aren't copied: preferences, sales tax setup, users, bank connections and payroll. Bank feeds, bank rules, reconciliation history, the audit log, payroll runs and budgets are never copied either.
- US companies only, in US dollars, without multicurrency, and up to 25,000 records per copy. Choose a shorter date range for bigger books.
Questions
Can I do this for a client without their QuickBooks login?
Yes, and you should never ask for it. Send the client a CopyMyBooks link; an admin of their company approves on Intuit's own screen. If you're already an admin of the client's company, you can connect it yourself.
Will the sandbox's reports match the real company's?
CopyMyBooks checks: it compares the profit and loss, balance sheet and trial balance with the real company's and shows any difference (with amounts disguised, it compares record counts instead). Starting balances give the sandbox the real balances the day before your first date, so you don't need the whole history. Copy every kind of record in your dates, journal entries included, and the check shows whether anything differs.
Are payments still applied to the right invoices?
Yes. Payments stay applied to their invoices, bill payments to their bills, and credits to what they paid. A link to a transaction outside the dates you chose can't be kept; the copy warns you before it starts.
What does it cost?
Nothing. The sandbox is free from Intuit, and CopyMyBooks is currently free. If we start charging, account holders hear first and choose whether to continue.