Moving your books to Accoru.

Before you start: pick a cutover date

The cutover date is the last day your old system is the record. Everything up to and including that day stays there; everything after it happens in Accoru. Your opening balances are the balances at the end of that day.

The end of a financial year is the simplest choice, because income and expense accounts have been closed into retained earnings and you only bring over balance sheet accounts. The end of a month or quarter works too; you just include year-to-date income and expense totals so this year's profit and loss is complete.

Close off the old system on that date: send any last invoices, record the payments you have received, and make sure the bank accounts in it agree with your statements. The cleaner the old books are, the shorter this job is.

What to export from your old system first

Run these reports as at your cutover date and save them as PDF or spreadsheet files. You'll work from them in the steps below, and they are your record of the old books once you stop using them.

• Trial balance at the cutover date
• Chart of accounts (account names, numbers and types)
• Aged receivables: every unpaid or part-paid customer invoice
• Aged payables: every unpaid or part-paid vendor bill
• Customer and vendor lists, with addresses, emails and tax IDs
• Product and service list, with prices, tax rates and stock counts
• Bank, cash and card statements covering the cutover date
• Recurring invoices, bills and subscriptions, with their next dates
• Tax rates you charge, your tax registration numbers and your last tax return
• The last numbers used for invoices, quotes and bills
• Profit and loss and balance sheet for past years, plus PDF copies of past invoices, for your records

Keep these files for as long as your tax authority requires you to keep business records. Some programs offer read-only access after you cancel; check with yours before you close the account.

Set up company settings and your logo

Start in Company Settings so every document you create from here on looks right.

• Upload your logo and set your brand color. Both appear on invoices, quotes, receipts and bills.
• Add your tax IDs, default payment terms and the notes you print on documents.
• Add each tax rate you charge or pay, marked inclusive or exclusive, and compound where it applies.
• Set document numbering so it carries on from your old system. If your last invoice was INV-1042, the next one in Accoru should be INV-1043.
• Choose a PDF template for each document type.

Set up your chart of accounts

Put your old trial balance next to the chart of accounts in Accoru. Every line on the trial balance needs an account to land in, so rename, add or remove accounts until it does. This is a good moment to tidy up; you don't have to copy accounts you no longer use.

Then add one temporary account called Opening balances clearing. You'll use it in steps 3 and 6 to avoid counting your open invoices and bills twice, and it should be back to zero when you finish.

Enter opening balances with a manual journal

Post one manual journal dated the cutover date, with a line for each balance on your old trial balance: bank and cash, stock, fixed assets, loans, tax owed, owner's equity, retained earnings and so on. If you switch mid-year, include the year-to-date income and expense balances as well. Debits must equal credits, exactly as they did on the trial balance.

Two balances are different. Don't post receivables to Accounts receivable or payables to Accounts payable here. Post the receivables total as a debit and the payables total as a credit to Opening balances clearing. Step 6 builds the real receivables and payables invoice by invoice, so each one can be paid and chased in Accoru.

Use the bank balance from your old books at the cutover date, not the bank statement, if the two differ because of payments that hadn't cleared. If you need a bank account to exist before you can post to it, add it in Banking first (step 7) and come back.

Add your customers and vendors

Customers and vendors live in one contact list. Start with everyone who appears on your aged receivables and aged payables, since you need them for step 6. Add billing and shipping addresses and the email address invoices should go to. Add other contacts as you next deal with them; there's no need to bring over people you haven't worked with in years.

Add your products and services

Add each product and service you sell or buy with its sales price, purchase price and default tax rate. Invoices and bills pull from this list from now on.

If you track stock, make sure each product's on-hand quantity matches your latest count before you start invoicing from it. The value of that stock is already in your opening journal from step 3.

Enter open invoices and bills

Work through your aged receivables. For each unpaid or part-paid invoice, create an invoice in Accoru with the original number, date and due date, and one typed line, such as "Balance from INV-1038", for the amount still owed. Don't pick a stock item, or stock levels will drop a second time. Don't add tax either, as it was already counted in your old books. Do the same for unpaid bills from your aged payables. Save these without emailing them, since your customers already have the originals.

These invoices post their totals to an income account, and the bills to an expense account. To undo that, post one manual journal dated the cutover date:

• Debit the income account the invoices used, and credit Opening balances clearing, for the total of the open invoices.
• Debit Opening balances clearing, and credit the expense account the bills used, for the total of the open bills.

Opening balances clearing should now be zero, and the receivables and payables in Accoru should match your old aged reports to the cent. If a balance is in another currency, enter the invoice in that currency and use your old system's base-currency figure in the journals; ask your accountant if the rounding difference matters to you.

Set up bank and cash accounts

Add each bank account, cash float and card account you use in Banking. Check that each one shows the opening balance from step 3 on the cutover date. Accoru has no automatic bank feed, so from then on you record deposits, withdrawals and transfers yourself, and payments on invoices and bills update the right account as you record them.

When cheques or payments that were outstanding at the cutover date clear, record them against the right account so the balance follows your statement.

Recreate recurring schedules

Using your list of recurring invoices, bills and subscriptions, set each one up again in Accoru with the same amount and frequency. Set its start date to the next date it is due after the cutover, and turn on payment reminders where you want them.

Switch off each schedule in the old system on the same day you create it in Accoru, so no customer gets two invoices for the same month.

Check your numbers

Before you send anything new, run these reports in Accoru as at the cutover date and compare them with the exports from your old system:

• The trial balance matches your old trial balance, and Opening balances clearing is zero.
• AR aging matches your old aged receivables, customer by customer.
• AP aging matches your old aged payables, vendor by vendor.
• Each bank and cash account balance matches your books at the cutover date.

If something is off, the activity log on each record shows what was entered and by whom, which makes the difference easier to trace. Once everything agrees, leave the clearing account at zero; nothing else should post to it.

Get help with your move

If you get stuck, email us with the program you are moving from and the step you are on. It also helps to invite your accountant with the accountant role: they can post the opening journals in steps 3 and 6 and check the trial balance for you.

Questions about switching