We have imported customer and orders directly into QuickBooks for 2 years now using MonsterBooks. Needless to say, with 40 orders a day, our QuickBooks file is huge and it's a very lenthly process now to manage all our customers and orders in Quickbooks.

I've been investigating Stone Edge Order Manager and like what I see so far. Before purchasing, I need some advise on switching over. Because Stone Edge will be housing all our customers and orders (and only summary transactions will be imported to QuickBooks), I want to get all our past customers and orders into Stone Edge immediately. I've seen where this can be done via exporting the IIF files from Quickbooks. But, what I need to know is how I can scale down my QuickBooks file once I do this? I would like to get all those individual customers and orders out of the file because it's soo large.

Does anyone have any advise on how to do this? Does Stone Edge provide thorough "set up" documentation for someone switching over like this? Does anyone have any advice on how to just create a new QuickBooks file retaining all the important account information yet without the individual customer and orders?

Thanks - Rhonda

Rhonda-

We switched over from Quickbooks to StoneEdge 2.5 years ago... we used StoneEdge's import to bring in our customer database (so future orders could be linked with the same customer, we could manually enter phone orders, etc). We did not import the orders currently stored in Quickbooks. This can be done manually (and it's difficult) - but there is no automatic way to import past orders from Quickbooks to StoneEdge.

Since we still had to refer to Quickbooks for information on past orders, those orders and customers had to stay in our company file... however, since we were no longer actively using the file for entering orders, the bulk of the file was less annoying (having 8 people sharing a Quickbooks file, especially before QB2006 was impossible)...

HTH,

Thanks Jared,

Was it easy to get setup and going with the new system? I'm afraid of the learning curve since I'm so busy with orders as it is today. Is there adequate documentation to get you up and going fast?

- Rhonda

Honestly, from start to finish - it took us two months to implement StoneEdge. Most of that period was preparing (cleaning up databases, designing custom reports, replicating custom systems, etc), but our needs are very different from most businesses. If you purchase StoneEdge, make sure to purchase the 'Express Setup Service' - it will be invaluable. There is a User Manual (last updated 4/3/07) that gives a good overview of the program, but the most accurate and current information is in the online knowledgebase (http://www.stoneedge.com/help).

We're in the process of switching to SE. And while there have been some growing pains, it is VERY worth it!

ps we imported all of our old order info without much trouble

Mailbag,

Did you use the Import OLD Orders feature to import from or did you do an export from Quickbooks into Stone Edge? Do you plan to create a new Quick Books file or just keep the current one with all your past customer and orders?

-Rhonda

with over 9 years of taking orders with quickbooks, we were also unsure what to do when we switched to SE. Luckily we did the main switch over Christmas break... We did not import customers, orders, or anything into Stone Edge. We did this because there are far too many duplicates in our Quickbooks file (customers). If we need to look up anything <2007, we open up Quickbooks and run reports, etc.

otherwise, all the information into SE is correct =)

Rhonda-

You can also import your orders directly into StoneEdge from MonsterCommerce (all of the old orders)... this is a good way to get past order history into StoneEdge easily. However, if you made any changes to those orders once they were entered into Quickbooks, those changes would not show up. Furthermore, any orders entered directly into Quickbooks would only appear in Quickbooks and would not download from .

We went from , not quickbooks. Took a LONG time so make sure you have some time to kill. Archived all the real old stuff.