Moving from spreadsheets or an old system to new accounting software is mostly a data exercise. Most of the effort and most of the mistakes are in the opening balances. With a little preparation you can get them right the first time.
1. Choose a clean cut-off date
The easiest cut-off is the end of a financial year or month, when the books are closed and balances are settled. Everything before that date stays in your old records, and everything after it goes into the new system. Avoid starting in the middle of a busy period.
2. Start from a closing trial balance
Take the trial balance at your cut-off date from the old records. Before using it, check that debits equal credits and that your bank accounts are reconciled. Fix known errors now, because the new system will faithfully carry whatever you give it.
3. Understand what opening balances include
- Balance sheet accounts carry forward: assets, liabilities and equity.
- Income and expense accounts normally start at zero in a new financial year. If you migrate part-way through a year, you also need the year-to-date profit and loss.
4. Map the old accounts to the new chart
List every account in the old trial balance next to the account it will use in the new chart. This is the right moment to tidy the structure, merging duplicates and dropping accounts you no longer use. Keep the mapping in writing so that you can explain it later.
5. Prepare the supporting detail
A single balance for receivables or payables is not enough. The new system needs the detail underneath it:
- Open customer invoices, with customer, date, due date and outstanding amount.
- Open supplier bills, listed the same way.
- Inventory, with quantity and cost for each item.
- Fixed assets, with cost, accumulated depreciation and the date acquired.
The totals of each list must equal the matching balance in the trial balance. If they do not, find out why before you import.
6. Prepare the spreadsheet carefully
- Use one row per account or item, with consistent column headings.
- Check that amounts are real numbers and not text, and that there are no hidden rows or merged cells.
- Decide how you will show debits and credits, and apply the same rule to every row.
- Use one date format throughout.
- Keep amounts in a single currency per file, or add a currency column if your system uses one.
7. Test first, then import for real
If you can, do a trial import in a test company or a copy and look at the results. Then repeat the import in the live company once you are happy. Check for duplicates before loading a second time, because importing twice is a common and costly mistake.
8. Verify the result
- Print the trial balance from the new system and compare it with the old one, line by line.
- Confirm that debits equal credits.
- Check that any temporary opening-balance or suspense account is zero.
- Agree the receivables and payables sub-ledgers to their control accounts.
- Agree bank balances to the statements at the cut-off date.
The mistakes that cost the most time
- Entering balances with the debit and credit sides reversed.
- Leaving out accounts that had a small balance.
- Loading invoices that were already paid.
- Importing without a backup of the original spreadsheet.
- Starting transactions before opening balances are confirmed.
If you are moving to Fox Pro Accounting, the Accounting & Vouchers page lists the Excel import available for accounts and opening balances. Check the format it expects before you prepare your files.