Should I keep QuickBooks POS running after we switch?

No. Shut it off the day you go live. Two systems means the counter keeps using the one it knows, and the new on-hands drift from the first week.

When should I do the last count in QuickBooks POS?

As close to go-live as you can, in walk order, after bins are assigned and duplicates are merged. Export right after. The dry run shows anything the count missed.

QuickBooks POS is discontinued. What moves to a new system, and what to fix first?

Q: Does the cost of my parts change in the new system?

It shouldn't. AxleTap values stock at average cost, updated each time you receive, which is how QuickBooks POS valued it too.

A lot of parts counters are still ringing sales on QuickBooks POS, because it works until the day it doesn’t, and because moving an inventory you don’t fully trust feels worse than keeping it. This post is about the move itself: what comes across, what a real export looks like after years at a busy counter, and the order to do things in.

What ended when Intuit discontinued QuickBooks POS?

QuickBooks POS still rings a ticket; what ended is everything around it. Intuit’s own notice lists what was discontinued on October 3, 2023: QuickBooks Point of Sale Payments, live support, the gift card service, mobile sync. Settlements through the old payments service fail, and the PIN pads no longer work. A discontinued product gets no security patches and no feature updates.

Is Shopify POS a replacement for a parts counter?

Shopify POS is Intuit’s suggested replacement, and it is built for retail and web stores, not for a counter that sells on account. Shopify has no charge accounts, no core charges, and no cross-reference numbers. Its own migration page says what the move leaves behind: order history, open sales orders and their deposits, purchase orders, receiving vouchers, and store credit. Intuit offers 20% off Shopify POS for switching, or 50% with Shopify Payments.

What does a QuickBooks POS export look like after years of use?

One heavy-duty parts store we moved off QuickBooks POS had over two thousand parts that were wrong or duplicated. Not because anyone was careless at the counter. For years, whoever was receiving typed a part number the way it looked on the box, and if that didn’t match what was already in the system, QuickBooks POS made a new item. The same filter existed three times, each with its own on-hand, and the counter sold out of one while the other two said there was plenty.

Bins lived in the description field, because QuickBooks POS had nowhere else to put them. “LF9009 Lube filter A-04-2” was the description, and a count sheet was a printout and a highlighter. Negative on-hands were everywhere, for the same reason: the counter sold the part that existed under one number while the stock came in under another.

None of that was invisible. It was the normal state of a busy store running a system that never asked a question. A count makes it visible, and it is cheaper to find before the move than after. How to count without closing the store is its own post.

What moves to a new system, and what doesn’t?

Whatever you move to, the import carries items with their on-hand quantities and customers with their balances. Those two numbers are the whole value of the migration.

Data in QuickBooks POS	AxleTap import	Shopify POS migration
Items with on-hand quantities	Yes, with stock per store	Yes (title, barcode, quantity, price)
Customers with balances	Yes, with what they owe	Names and contacts; no balances
Vendors	Yes	As suppliers, in a separate app
Order and sales history	No; keep the export files	No
Open sales orders and deposits	Re-entered	No
Open purchase orders and receiving	Re-entered; open bills come from QuickBooks	No
Bins in the description field	Split out before import where consistent	No bins
Store credit	Re-entered	No

If the on-hand quantities are wrong today, they will be wrong in the new system on day one, and the new system will get the blame.

In what order should a parts store move off QuickBooks POS?

Set up bins first. If parts have no home, the count has no map. Decide the bin format once (zone, aisle, bay, level), label the racks, and give every part a bin before you count. Bins that live in the description field come out of there now.
Merge the duplicates. Pick the number that survives, move the other numbers onto it as alternates so the counter can still find it by any of them, and combine the on-hands.
Count in walk order. Don’t move a number you haven’t checked. The count in the weeks before go-live is the one that matters most. Start with the parts that move fastest, because that is where the drift is.
Clean up what the count exposes. Negative on-hands, special-order parts sitting as stock, cores and warranty returns mixed into the shelf count.
Export items with on-hand, customers with balances, and vendors. These are the files a new system imports.
Dry run. Load the export into the new system before anything is live, and walk through a sale, a count and a statement with your own parts and accounts. Fix what’s off, export again. We do this for free with your QuickBooks POS file.
Go live from a count, not from a guess. Then shut QuickBooks POS off. Keep the export files and a backup of the company file. Two systems running means the counter keeps using the one it knows.

Cost carries over without surprises: stock is valued at average cost, updated each time you receive, which is what QuickBooks POS did too.

What does AxleTap bring over from QuickBooks POS?

AxleTap imports items with stock, customers with balances and vendors from the QuickBooks POS export files, and runs the import as a dry run first so you see your own store before anything is live. Open bills come from QuickBooks accounting. Contract prices and fleet lists come from spreadsheets. The detail is on the product page.