How to export your books from QuickBooks Desktop before you cancel your subscription

A free, step-by-step checklist for one-person businesses. About 30–60 minutes.

If you're thinking about cancelling or not renewing a QuickBooks Desktop subscription, do this first.

Intuit's help page says that if you cancel a QuickBooks Desktop subscription, you'll need to re-activate it to open and view your company file. (Intuit: Cancel your QuickBooks Desktop subscription)

So while your subscription is still active, save copies of your books in formats you can open without QuickBooks: spreadsheets (Excel or CSV) and PDFs. This guide shows you which ones matter and how to get them.

Even if you aren't cancelling, older Desktop versions lose connected services on a schedule. For example, Intuit's discontinuation policy says that after May 31, 2026, QuickBooks Desktop 2023 no longer automatically calculates payroll taxes, and online banking and payment services stop for that version. (Intuit: QuickBooks Desktop service discontinuation policy)

Whatever you decide next (renewing, moving to QuickBooks Online, or switching to something else), these files are worth having.

Before you start

1. Pick a cut-off date. The last day of a month is easiest, and the end of your financial year is best.
2. Reconcile your bank and credit card accounts up to that date. It's much easier to fix mistakes while QuickBooks still opens.
3. Make a folder called something like QuickBooks export – [business name] – [date]. Everything below goes in it.
4. Tell your accountant the date you're doing this. They may want extra reports. Ask them which ones, and how long you should keep your records.

Step 1: Make a full QuickBooks backup

File > Back Up Company > Create Local Backup

This makes a .QBB file, a complete copy of your company file. Put one copy in your export folder and one somewhere off your computer (a USB drive or cloud storage).

Be clear about what this is: a .QBB backup only opens in QuickBooks. It's your safety net if you ever go back, not something you can read on its own. That's why the next steps matter.

Step 2: Export your lists (IIF files)

File > Utilities > Export > Lists to IIF Files

Tick the lists you use, typically:

• Chart of Accounts
• Customer List
• Vendor List
• Item List (needed if you use sales-tax items)

Click OK and save. You get an .iif file, plain tab-separated text you can open in Excel or any text editor to check.

Good to know: QuickBooks Desktop can export lists as IIF, but not transactions. Intuit's IIF help explains this. Your transaction history comes out through reports instead (Step 4).

Step 3: Export customer and vendor details to Excel

The IIF list file is good for moving to another program. A spreadsheet is easier for you to read.

• Customer Center > Excel (dropdown) > Export Customer List
• Vendor Center > Excel (dropdown) > Export Vendor List

These include names, contact details and balances.

Step 4: Export your transaction history (Journal report)

This is the most important file for your history.

Reports > Accountant & Taxes > Journal

1. Click Customize Report and set the date range to All (or the years you want to keep).
2. Click Excel > Create New Worksheet. If you have a very large file, save it as CSV instead. Excel has a limit of about 1 million rows.

The Journal report lists every transaction line with its debit and credit. It's the most complete record of your history outside QuickBooks.

Optional: General Ledger. Reports > Accountant & Taxes > General Ledger, then Excel. It shows the same activity grouped by account with running balances. Some accountants prefer it.

Step 5: Save your balances (Trial Balance)

Reports > Accountant & Taxes > Trial Balance

Set the date to your cut-off date, then export to Excel. This shows the balance of every account on that day, and becomes your opening balances in whatever you use next. It's also how you check later that nothing went missing: the totals in your new system should match it.

Step 6: Save the key reports as PDFs

PDFs open on any computer and can't be accidentally edited. For each report below, set the dates. In the report window, click Print, then choose to save it as a PDF (or pick a PDF printer).

Save these, for each year you want to keep:

• Profit & Loss: Reports > Company & Financial > Profit & Loss Standard
• Balance Sheet as of each year-end: Reports > Company & Financial > Balance Sheet Standard
• Trial Balance as of each year-end (Step 5's report).
• A/R Aging Detail (who still owes you money): Reports > Customers & Receivables > A/R Aging Detail
• A/P Aging Detail (bills you still owe): Reports > Vendors & Payables > A/P Aging Detail
• Sales tax report, if you collect sales tax: Reports > Vendors & Payables > Sales Tax Liability

Also save a list of open invoices and unpaid bills you'll need to chase or pay after the switch. The two Aging reports above cover this.

Step 7: Check your files open

Before you cancel anything, close QuickBooks and open each file:

• Do the Excel/CSV files open and show data?
• Does the Journal report cover the full date range you wanted?
• Do the PDFs look right?
• Is there a copy of the folder somewhere other than this computer?

Checklist

• Cut-off date chosen, and bank and cards reconciled up to it
• Accountant told, and any extra reports they want saved
• Full backup (.QBB) saved in two places
• Lists exported to IIF (accounts, customers, vendors, items)
• Customer and vendor lists exported to Excel
• Journal report exported (Excel or CSV), full date range
• Trial Balance at the cut-off date exported to Excel
• Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet saved as PDF, for each year you keep
• A/R and A/P Aging Detail saved
• Sales tax report saved (if you collect sales tax)
• Every file opened and checked
• Export folder copied off this computer

What next?

With these files you can make a clean decision about renewing or switching, with copies of your records you can open without QuickBooks.

We're building OneTimeBooks, a pay-once bookkeeping app for one-person businesses. We're designing it to read the IIF list files, Trial Balance and Journal report from this guide. It isn't out yet. If you'd like to hear when it is, join the waitlist.

QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. OneTimeBooks is not affiliated with Intuit. Menu names can differ between QuickBooks versions. This guide is general information, not tax or legal advice.