The issue is because the function is no longer available for UK customers - despite the fact that on my uk quickbooks online account this specific process is instructed. After spending over 1 hour on hold I was told that I can’t use the function because I’m in the uk. 

instead we are forced to use the migrate tool function (since quickbooks desktop is no longer available for us either) and if we want more than 2 years of data then we have to pay £75 per year for it.

so basically if we don’t pay we lose access to all our data because we are being forced to migrate away from desktop. Not fair IMO from quickbooks.