To switch from Wave to QuickBooks Online, request Wave's data export, which arrives as accounting, customer, vendor and bill files. Import the customer and vendor lists into QuickBooks Online, enter opening balances from Wave's reports as of your start date, then bring in any earlier bank months as bank files rather than as Wave's journal rows.
What Wave's data export gives you for QuickBooks Online
Wave's export is a set of spreadsheet files sent to you by email. According to Wave's help article on downloading your account data, the accounting export contains four XLS or CSV files: an accounting file of journal entries and transactions, a bill items file, a customers file and a vendors file.
To request it, Wave says to sign in, open Business settings from your business name, scroll to Other and choose Data Export. The download link arrives at the account's primary email address and stays active for 24 hours, so request the export when you have time to save the files straight away. Wave also notes that Viewer and Editor roles cannot export, so the business owner or an admin has to do it.
Get the reports as well as the export
The export holds raw records. For the switch you also want Wave's own reports as of the day before your start date, saved as files you can keep:
- A balance sheet, for the opening balances.
- A profit and loss for the current year so far, and for last year.
- An aged receivables list and an aged payables list, for open invoices and bills.
- An Account Transactions report for each bank account, filtered to the dates you want; Wave's help says that report is the way to get transactions between specific dates.
Each business profile in Wave exports on its own. If you run two businesses in Wave, repeat the export inside each one.
Can QuickBooks Online read Wave's accounting file directly?
No. Wave's accounting file is a list of journal entries and transactions in Wave's own layout, and QuickBooks Online has no import that reads it as a whole. The file is still valuable: it is your record of what happened. But it has to be split, by purpose, into the separate imports QuickBooks Online does accept.
Intuit's common questions about importing data into QuickBooks Online lists what can be brought in: customers, vendors, the chart of accounts, invoices, bills, journal entries and bank data. It accepts CSV, Google Sheets or Excel files, and each spreadsheet must have fewer than 1,000 rows. Intuit adds that the first row is used for mapping, so a header row is required.
The mapping in one table
This table pairs each Wave file with the QuickBooks Online import that fits it. Treat it as a plan to adapt to your own data.
| Wave export file | QuickBooks Online destination | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Customers file | Customer import | Clean duplicate names first |
| Vendors file | Vendor import | Includes contractors |
| Bill items file | Bill import, open bills only | Intuit restricts bill imports to Advanced and higher plans in the US |
| Accounting file | Reference only, or journal entries for balances | Not a bank file; do not upload it to a bank account |
| Account Transactions report | Bank file upload, after reshaping | One account per file |
Moving Wave customers, vendors and accounts into QuickBooks Online
Lists go first, because every later import refers to them. Import customers, then vendors, then set up the chart of accounts, each from its own spreadsheet. A transaction that names a customer QuickBooks Online has never heard of either fails or creates a new, slightly different name.
Customers and vendors
Open Wave's customers file, remove anyone you have not dealt with in years, and check for the same business listed twice under slightly different names. Keep the columns QuickBooks Online asks for during mapping, such as name, email, phone and address. Then import the vendors file in the same way. If a name is longer than QuickBooks Online allows, shorten it before the import rather than letting it truncate.
Chart of accounts
Wave's account names rarely match QuickBooks Online's defaults exactly. Decide which accounts you want, rename the QuickBooks ones to match where it helps, and add any missing ones. Keep the list short: a new start is a good moment to merge accounts you never needed. Every bank and card account in Wave should exist in QuickBooks Online before you enter balances.
FreshBooks users face a similar list step with different files; switching from FreshBooks to QuickBooks Online shows that version of the job.
Opening balances in QuickBooks Online from Wave's reports
Opening balances are the figures from Wave's balance sheet on the day before your start date. Each bank, card and loan account gets its statement balance on that date, and a journal entry dated that day carries the rest. With balances in place, the first bank import in QuickBooks Online starts from a known number.
An example set of balances
These figures are illustrative, for a sole owner starting QuickBooks Online on July 1.
| Account | Balance on June 30 | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Business checking | 14,602.18 | June bank statement closing balance |
| Business credit card | 2,317.40 owed | June card statement balance |
| Accounts receivable | 3,950.00 | Open invoices in Wave's aged receivables |
| Accounts payable | 880.00 | Open bills in Wave's aged payables |
| Owner's equity | Balancing figure | Wave's balance sheet |
Use the bank's statement balance, not Wave's book balance, if the two differ. A gap usually means a transaction was missing or duplicated in Wave, and carrying it forward hides it in the new books.
For receivables and payables, enter each open invoice and bill as its own record rather than as one total. That way, when a customer pays an old Wave invoice in July, QuickBooks Online has something to apply the payment to.
Importing Wave-era bank history into QuickBooks Online as bank files
Bank history from your start date up to the first line the QuickBooks Online bank feed delivers comes in through the bank upload, one account at a time. Build each file from the bank's own statements or downloads, or from Wave's Account Transactions report for that account, and shape it into the columns QuickBooks Online reads.
Never upload Wave's full accounting file to a bank account. It mixes every account together, so card charges, transfers and journal adjustments would all land in one register as if they were bank lines.
Intuit's article on manually uploading transactions into QuickBooks Online says each CSV needs either three columns (Date, Description, Amount) or four (Date, Description, Credit, Debit), all dates in the same format, and a file of 350 KB or less.
Reshaping a Wave report into a bank file
Here is an example of rows from a Wave Account Transactions report and the three-column CSV they become. The values are made up.
| Wave report row | Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deposit, client payment, 1,200.00 | 03/02/2026 | Client payment, Harbor Design | 1200.00 |
| Withdrawal, software subscription, 49.00 | 03/04/2026 | Software subscription | -49.00 |
| Withdrawal, transfer to savings, 500.00 | 03/09/2026 | Transfer to savings | -500.00 |
Keep only the date, a readable description and one signed amount, with money out as a minus. Remove any balance rows or totals at the bottom of the report.
How far back the Wave bank files should go
Only go back as far as your opening balances. If the balances are dated June 30, you do not need bank history before July 1 inside QuickBooks Online at all, because the balance already sums it up. Older months imported on top of a balance would count the same money twice. If you want the older detail for lookups, keep Wave's reports instead. If you do want earlier months in QuickBooks Online, move the start date back and date the opening balances to match, rather than stacking history on top of a later balance.
When the bank only gives you PDFs
If you would rather work from the bank's statements than from Wave's records, those are often PDFs. SimpleBankConvert is being built to turn a PDF statement into a CSV or QBO file the QuickBooks Online upload accepts; you can ask for access from the get started page. Upload months oldest first, and stop the day before the bank feed's first line so the two never overlap.
Which Wave invoices and sales need extra care in QuickBooks Online?
Open invoices, recurring invoices and sales from marketplaces need extra care, because a plain balance cannot carry them. An open Wave invoice has to exist in QuickBooks Online as an invoice so it can be paid. A recurring Wave invoice has to be rebuilt as a new schedule. Marketplace payouts need their fees split from sales.
Open and recurring invoices
List every invoice that was unpaid on the day before your start date. Recreate each in QuickBooks Online with its original date, number and amount, so the customer's next payment matches. Then set up any recurring invoices again and confirm the next send date, since a duplicate send in the first month is an easy way to confuse a client.
Marketplace and payment processor sales
If Wave recorded marketplace sales as single deposits, the move is a chance to record them properly. Each payout is gross sales less fees and refunds, and importing Amazon sales into QuickBooks from settlement reports shows how to record each payout so it matches the bank.
Not sure QuickBooks Online is the right destination?
Some Wave users weigh QuickBooks Online against Xero before they move. The steps differ in a few places, chiefly how balances are entered, and switching from Wave to Xero covers that route from the same Wave export.