Please understand that it is impossible to make an exact copy of your data in a different accounting system. There will be some information that we can’t convert and some information will look different when converted. Despite this, in most cases, the balances in the Trial Balance report should match between the source system and QuickBooks Online.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Foreign Currency

We mention foreign currency in our limitations pages so this page will provide further details on how we approach foreign currency conversions. This page includes information relevant for conversions to all destination systems.


Important information

From QuickBooks (Desktop or Online) and Freeagent


Factors specific to QuickBooks (Desktop and Online) and FreeAgent mean that conversions where foreign currency is detected or those containing non-home currency transactions from these systems are unlikely to complete accurately.


We will not investigate or fix any aspect of these conversions, even if seemingly unrelated to foreign currency.


The only options regarding unsuccessful foreign currency conversions from QuickBooks (Desktop or Online) or FreeAgent, will be to accept them complete with differences, or abandon the conversion. We do not recommend reconverting a second time as this is likely to give the same results.


From Sage, KashFlow or Xero

We will do our best to investigate and resolve any differences with these conversions although this isn’t always possible.


For more information see the foreign currency page.


General

Causes of Complications

We never know exactly what the results of a conversion will be ahead of performing it. The information below is a guide for things that are likely to cause complications. Whether these complications will cause differences, unusual looking transactions, or prevent the conversion from completing we can’t yet say but it’s best to be aware of them in advance.


Volumes

Please be aware that it may cause complications (we’re unable to fix) with your conversion if your source software contains in excess of any of the following in the conversion period:

40,000 combined invoices, bills and credits

40,000 bank transactions

2,500 credit notes allocated to invoices

10,000 contacts

600 chart of account codes

100 or more departments/classes


Converting from Sage

If there are journals manually entered in Sage Desktop that have the same “Ledger year end” description as the system journals, we aren’t able to convert these. Differences will be displayed once the conversion is completed and you may complete the Fix It For Me form but adjusting for these isn’t included in our service unless extremely simple.


If payment providers such as Stripe are used in Sage Business Cloud Accounting there may be differences caused by Sage reporting Payouts to us as transactions although they may not have been recorded in the accounts.


Converting from FreeAgent

Corporation Tax

FreeAgent automatically creates entries for corporation tax that aren’t provided to us by FreeAgent. We’re investigating options to improve this but currently corporation tax is unlikely to be converted correctly.


Smart User Payments

If smart user payments are used, FreeAgent, doesn’t provide us with the split between the salary, expense and dividend. This is likely to result in differences in the conversion that we’re not able to resolve.


For more information, please see FreeAgent’s smart user payment blog. 


Flat Rate or non-VAT/tax registered

FreeAgent allows tax transactions to be entered in non-tax registered companies. It also posts the gross transaction value to P&L accounts for purchase transactions with tax under the flat rate scheme.


In both scenarios, while FreeAgent correctly ignores the tax for accounting purposes, the information provided to us from FreeAgent does not. This means we’re unable to accurately convert the journals.


These transactions will be recognised by our system as taxable transactions and the tax will be posted to the tax account. This will cause differences that we’re not able to resolve.


Stock

When selling stock items in FreeAgent, the cost price is calculated by FreeAgent using the FIFO (first-in first-out) principle. This calculated cost is then adjusted for in the balance sheet and Profit and Loss. FreeAgent does not provide us with details of the adjustment. As a result, stock is unlikely to be correct in the destination system.


For more information, please see FreeAgent’s blog on stock valuation.


Foreign Currency

Factors specific to FreeAgent mean that conversions where foreign currency is detected or those containing non-home currency transactions are unlikely to complete accurately.


We will not investigate or fix any aspect of these conversions, even if seemingly unrelated to foreign currency.


The only options regarding unsuccessful foreign currency conversions from FreeAgent will be to accept them complete with differences, or abandon the conversion. We do not recommend reconverting a second time as this is likely to give the same results.


FreeAgent Trial Balance report

The Trial Balance in FreeAgent doesn’t include previous financial years (unless the report dates are set to include all previous years). This includes the Balance Sheet accounts.


When comparing FreeAgent Balance Sheet accounts to your destination software, set the FreeAgent Trial Balance report to include all dates. When comaring the Profit & Loss report do not select to include previous financial years. 


Data converted via transactional view

In FreeAgent, the same transactions can display with different dates or tax rates in the transactional view compared to the report view.


Data will be converted per the FreeAgent transactional view and not the report view. This “transactional view” data is the only data available to us.


As a result of this, your account balances may be different when comparing between FreeAgent and your destination software.


Capital Asset Handling

FreeAgent uses different accounts for the Capital Asset, additions, disposals, and depreciation. At the end of an accounting year, FreeAgent then ‘rolls up’ these sub-accounts into its parent. It does this “behind the scenes”, without any transaction for us to replicate. This will result in the Capital Asset accounts being correct, but may show different balances. 


This can be checked by summing a single Capital Asset account and sub-accounts in FreeAgent and your destination software. The balances should be the same.  

 

For more information, please see FreeAgent’s blog on handling capital assets


Dividend accounts

At the end of your financial year FreeAgent transfers the balance on the dividend accounts to the Profit and Loss account. It does this “behind the scenes”, without any transaction for us to replicate. This may result in dividend accounts showing different balances to the source system.


Non-VAT Enabled Source 

If you are non-VAT enabled in FreeAgent, you are still able to enter VAT  transactions. If you are non-VAT enabled and have entered VAT on transactions, your destination company will need to be VAT enabled and we will bring across the VAT on the transactions and post them to the VAT account.


General

If CIS is operated then the conversion is unlikely to be successful. This is because the CIS details are often provide to us incorrectly by the source system.


If payment providers such as Stripe are used in Sage Accounting, there may be differences caused by Sage reporting Payouts to us as transactions, although they may not have been recorded in the accounts.


What data will be converted?

We will transfer the following data to Xero:


Customer details

Supplier details

Chart of accounts

Account balances

Customer balances

Supplier balances

Classes/department information (optional)

All individual transactions in the conversion period

Best attempts will be made for matching fields between software systems when converting to QuickBooks Online. Some fields may not be converted where QuickBooks Online`s API does not provide the means to do so.


It’s not possible for Movemybooks to provide custom mappings for any fields.


What data won't be converted? 


We only currently convert the core accounting information and not the following types of data:

  • Sage archives or backup data that isn’t “open” or “live”
  • Sage Cloud (SageOne) Analysis Types (equivalent of departments)
  • Budgets
  • Stock/Inventory/Items quantities*¹
  • Product/Service/Sales quantities*
  • Sales / Purchase Orders
  • Quotes/Drafts/Estimates/Unposted transactions
  • Memorised Transactions
  • Default nominal codes, payment terms or tax rates
  • Templates such as invoice templates
  • Timesheets/Time Records
  • Payroll and Employee Records*
  • Accounts that have never had any transactions
  • Deleted or cancelled transactions
  • Custom VAT/Tax rates (see workarounds below)
  • Project data/Job costing*
  • File attachments (optional extra on certain conversions)
  • Unpaid expense claims
  • CIS details (transactions are also unlikely to convert correctly)
  • Customers associated with recharge transactions
  • Charity fund codes
  • Custom fields (invoices/bill/contacts)

*Associated transactions will be converted ie. for a stock item, the purchase would be converted, but no stock information would be present on the transaction.


¹ All stock/inventory/items will be converted as Services and not Stock/Inventory.


Workarounds

Transaction types we can't convert

There are certain transaction types that we’re currently unable to convert to QuickBooks Online eg. Bank transfers (fund transfers). We therefore use the Journal transaction or closest transaction type as a substitute.


Another example is Xero’s prepayment transaction type.


It’s not possible for us to represent Xero prepayments in the same way they are in Xero.


This is likely to cause differences between Xero and QuickBooks Online for the duration a prepayment remains unallocated. Allocating the prepayment does correct the balances from the date the allocation is made.


Bank and Credit Card Accounts

Bank and Credit Cards

The API (by which we send the data to QuickBooks Online) does not yet enable us to set bank transactions as reconciled. All bank transactions will be converted as unreconciled. Reconciling the bank forms part of the post-conversion tasks.


Credit card charge transactions are converted as transaction type “Cheque”.


Credit Card accounts can only be converted as QuickBooks Online Bank Accounts. Credit card bank feeds may not be available. Following the conversion, balances can be transferred to credit card accounts where feeds are available.


VAT/Tax

Some VAT/tax transactions including those with custom tax rates, EC VAT, reverse charges or unusual tax transactions will be converted as closely as possible but are likely to be different. We may use a standard rate of tax or No Tax and then add an adjustment to correct the tax amount if necessary. This could result in some boxes in VAT/Tax Returns being incorrect even if the Balance Sheet amount to be paid or refunded is correct.


For more information please refer to our post-conversion tasks page and also the Tax Returns Don’t Agree page.


Depending on the system you’re converting from and the transactions present, the conversion may result in some rounding differences due to the way VAT/tax or line amount totals are calculated differently between systems.


Accounts Receivable and Payable

If you have multiple Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable accounts in your QuickBooks desktop chart of accounts, then we will attempt to merge them into a single account to send to QuickBooks Online.



Sage Batches

If you’re converting from Sage 50 and “Batch invoice” was used to enter invoices, each line will be converted as a separate invoice (irrespective of the reference) as Sage stores the data this way.


Rounding / Decimal Places

QuickBooks Online may have a different rounding scheme to the software system you’re converting from. If the sum of a line in QuickBooks Online is calculated differently to that in the source then the quantity and unit amount will be dropped from QuickBooks Online and only the line total will be converted.


As above, transactions with unit amounts to more than two decimal places will be entered as the line item total.


Payroll

Payroll and employee records are mentioned in the “What data won’t be converted?” as information we can’t convert. We do try our best to convert the accounting transactions, although this isn’t always possible.


Things you may need to tidy post-conversion


Reconciling bank transactions


It’s important you don’t connect bank feeds or manually import any bank statement data for your conversion period. The steps below will ensure all the balances are correct.



As QuickBooks Online doesn’t provide us with the ability to convert transactions as reconciled, you’ll need to tell it to mark all relevant transactions up to the conversion date as reconciled. This will correct the current reconciled status of transactions and means QuickBooks Online will only consider future transactions for reconciling.


From the Dashboard, under Bank Accounts, click the name of the bank account.

You can change the bank as necessary then click Reconcile.

On the next screen click Get Started but when asked if you want to Reconcile like a pro, select the option to close the popup.

Reconcile an account will display. Complete the Ending Balance and Ending Date fields as they were on the date you converted to.

Leave the rest of the form blank and select OK.

You will see a list of transactions up to the statement ending date entered on the previous step. Select the top radio button to reconcile all the listed transactions.

If there are unreconciled transactions, make sure to leave them deselected.



Select Finish Now.


It’s important to repeat this process for all bank accounts in QuickBooks Online.


Filing VAT/tax returns

Note that when preparing your first VAT/tax return in QuickBooks Online, it won’t include any unfiled “late” claims that were entered in your source software and may be incorrect if we’d had to use some workarounds. We recommend you carefully check the figures in any QuickBooks Online tax return that contains converted transactions and is yet to be submitted. If the figures provided by QuickBooks Online are different from those you need to file, you may need to adjust the tax return in QuickBooks Online, manually post journals or make some other necessary changes. This should only affect tax returns to be submitted that include converted transactions. Subsequent tax returns containing only transactions entered after the conversion should not require any manual adjustments. To read more about why tax returns may be different for the same period in the old and new software please click here.



File the most recent tax period you’ve already submitted. QuickBooks Online will then be able to recognise any future transactions entered that are dated back into historical tax period as “late” claims. These will then automatically be included in the next tax return.


For UK companies, make sure that MTD is not yet setup. Choose Taxes from the left column and if you see the option to setup MTD choose I don’t need MTD (you’ll be able to set it up later):



You should then be able to select the option to Prepare return.

Edit the period and dates as necessary before clicking the arrow next to the Submit button to display and select Mark as filed. You’ll then be returned to the Taxes page this time showing the filed return as unpaid. If the tax return indicates a refund is due, the return will show as paid.

For returns where tax is owed, select the option to Record payment and choose a bank account, date and the amount from the tax return.

Whether you owe or are owed tax, you now need to enter a journal entry. In the top right of your browser click the + button and under Other choose Journal Entry.


You’ll then see the Journal Entry screen. Assuming the amount filed was a payment (not a refund) then post the following journal entering the amount included on your filed tax return. Remember to use the same bank account, amount and date you used when recording the payment above.

Save the journal entry to complete the process.


Where tax is owed to you, the journal is slightly different as you won’t have entered as bank payment. Instead you’ll need to Debit Tax Control and Credit Tax Suspense:



If you are VAT registered in the UK, you can then turn on MTD by clicking Edit VAT in the top right, then Edit Settings








Select the slider to turn on MTD.









Undeposited Funds

If converting from QuickBooks Desktop an “Undeposited Funds (old)” bank account will be created during the conversion. This will appear in addition to the system Undeposited Funds account.


Your desktop undeposited funds transactions will have been converted into this new undeposited funds bank account.


If the balance in this bank account is nil, it can be made inactive and ignored.


If there is a balance on this account, there will have been a balance in the undeposited funds system account in QuickBooks Desktop. In order to clear this balance, when (post-conversion) any funds relating to converted transactions are deposited in the bank, instead of depositing funds in the usual way (and specifying they are deposited from the system undeposited funds account) a transfer or journal entry should be made in QuickBooks Online. This would be a journal from the “Undeposited Funds (old)” (bank) account to the bank account the funds are being deposited into.


Any new transactions entered in QuickBooks Online can use the system undeposited funds feature and will not be posted to the “Undeposited Funds (old)” bank account created during the conversion. These can be handled in the normal way without any transfer journal being required.


Tidy Foreign Currency

The recommendations below may not always be required or optimal for your user case. Please read them carefully and consider if they are relevant to you before attempting to apply them.


All bank accounts will be in base currency so create new foreign currency bank accounts. You’ll need to have setup Multicurrency from the Advanced Settings. Once the currencies are added, add the bank account.




Once you have the new foreign currency account, you may wish to transfer the GBP balance into the new foreign currency account. Do this by navigating to the plus (+ New) button in the top left and selecting Funds Transfer. Enter the date to be the same as the “convert to” date selected for the conversion. Apply an exchange rate such that the GBP account will be emptied and the deposit in the foreign currency account will reflect the correct foreign currency amount.




If you have any outstanding foreign currency invoices or bills at your convert to date, then these will also have been converted at their GBP equivalent value. You may wish to edit (or void / delete, then re-enter) these to correctly reflect the foreign currency values owed or owing. To edit them, you’ll first need to create a new contact, and whilst doing so, choose the appropriate currency in the payment and billing tab. You can then edit the invoice or bill contact and amount to be the newly created foreign currency contact and foreign currency amount. For further details on doing this, click here.


FreeAgent Corporation Tax

If you’re a company that converted from FreeAgent, the automatically posted journals relating to corporation tax won’t have been converted. The only one of these journals we do convert is where the year end has completed but the corporation tax payment due date is in the future.


QuickBooks Online’s opening balance journal may also need amending for any opening balance on the Corporation Tax Liability account. The Trial Balances should then agree.


Access the Corporation Tax page in FreeAgent to review the calculations of each year’s corporation tax.


Review the “liability” figure for any historical year with a payment due date in the past. The liability for each of these years should be entered in QuickBooks Online as a journal. The “Balance Owed” at the last year end before the start date of your conversion will need entering in QuickBooks Online’s opening balances. This will be covered later on.




Before creating the journals in QuickBooks Online, check that both a Corpration tax liability and a Corporation tax expense account exist in the QuickBooks Online chart of accounts. If not create them as necessary.


 


The example to the right shows how you could create the Corporation tax expense account although customise this as you require.






Once you have the necessary accounts, add the journal to QuickBooks Online. Choose the +New button and then select Journal entry.


The journal date in QuickBooks Online should be the same as the “Dated on” date from FreeAgent. The liability is posted to both the Corporation tax liability and Corporation tax expense accounts in QuickBooks Online.


Enter a journal in QuickBooks Online corresponding to the corporation tax liability of each historical year in FreeAgent where the “Payment due” date is in the past. Do this for each year within your conversion period. If there’s multiple journals to enter in QuickBooks Online, you may find it useful to copy one journal and amend the date and amounts as necessary.







Next, add a new journal in QuickBooks Online or amend the QuickBooks Online opening balance journal to include the opening Corporation Tax Liability balance. This balance can found in the FreeAgent Corporation Tax report. If your conversion was for the period 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2024 the “Balance Owed” at 31/12/2018 would be the correct figure.