Limitations when converting to Sage Accounting

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. You can be confident, however, that your financial data will be accurate overall.

Foreign Currency

 

Converts in home currency

We will attempt to convert data which includes foreign currencies in the same way as other data. However, all foreign currency amounts will be translated to the home currency values.

Due to the way different systems calculate foreign currency values there may be differences on some accounts. We aren’t able to fix these so foreign currency conversions may be successfully completed with differences remaining.

For more information, please refer to our Foreign Currency conversion page and the post-conversion tasks.

General

Causes of complications

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

If you’re converting from QuickBooks Online and recharge transactions then not all line items may be included when converting.

If converting from QuickBooks Online Simple Start then it’s not possible to invite users so we won’t be able to fix your conversion.

QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online allow for bills to be paid from suppliers different to that named on the bill itself. When converting to other systems this is not supported and will result in differences we’re unable to fix.

Also note that due to a limitation with QuickBooks Online, transactions using a Product/Service Stock Asset may not convert with the correct account code.

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 completed and you may complete the Fix It For Me form but adjusting for these isn’t included in our service unless extremely simple.

What data will be converted?

We will transfer the following data to Sage Accounting:

  • Customer Details
  • Supplier Details
  • Chart of accounts
  • Account balances
  • Customer balances
  • Supplier balances
  • All individual transactions in the conversion period

Best attempts will be made for matching fields between software systems when converting to Sage Accounting. Some source fields will not be converted where Sage Accounting does not provide a 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:

  • Classes/Locations
  • Budgets
  • Project/Departments information
  • Stock/Inventory Items
  • Product/Sales Items
  • Sub-account structure of the chart of accounts
  • Fixed Asset Registers
  • Sales and Purchase Orders
  • Bank statements
  • Quotes/Estimates/Draft/Unposted invoices or bills
  • Repeating/Memorized Transactions
  • Default nominal codes, payment terms or tax rates
  • Custom tax rates (see workarounds used)
  • Templates (such as invoice and other templates)
  • Timesheets/Time Records
  • Payroll and Employee Records
  • Accounts that have never had any transactions
  • Transactions after the “Convert To” date
  • Deleted or cancelled transactions
  • Nil value invoice line items
  • File attachments

If the option to convert departments is not displaying on the Conversion Setup page then no department data will be transferred.

Workarounds

Transaction types we can't convert

There are certain transaction types that Sage Accounting does not allow us to convert. We try to create transactions in Sage Accounting that match as closely as possible the transaction in the original software, although sometimes we have to use a different transaction type.

One 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.

We’re planning some improvements to this but in the meantime you are likely to see differences between Xero and Sage 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

PayPal accounts can only be converted as Sage Accounting Bank Accounts.

Tax

Transactions with custom tax amounts, or unusual tax transactions will be converted as closely as possible but are likely to be different. We may use a different tax rate or no tax and then add an adjustment to correct the tax amount if necessary. This could result in some boxes in Tax Returns being incorrect even if the Balance Sheet amount to be paid or refunded is correct.

System tax accounts are separated to become sales and purchase tax accounts as required by Sage Accounting.

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 tax or line amount totals are calculated differently between systems.

Multiple Payables or Receivables Accounts

If you have multiple Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable accounts in your QuickBooks desktop chart of accounts then these will be merged into one single Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable account in Sage Accounting.

Decimal places

Transactions with unit price to more than two decimal places will be rounded to two decimal places.

Transactions with a quantity containing decimal places will be changed to 1 and the unit price changed to reflect the correct line item value.

Invoice Numbers

Sage Accounting restricts invoice numbers to numerical characters with a maximum of 9 characters. If the source contains invoice numbers of more than 9 numerical characters a new unique number will be issued following the existing sequence if possible. All non-numerical values will be stripped from the invoice number.

Things you may need to tidy post-conversion

We do provide details of our recommended post-conversion tasks but below is a summary. If performing a foreign currency conversion there may be additional tasks you wish to complete. Please refer to the foreign currency section above for more information.

Check the VAT Codes for each of your chart of accounts items

Our software tries to work out what the tax codes for each account should be, based on the transactions posted to that account in your data, but you should check and amend them if needed before working in your new Sage Accounting company.

Filing TaxReturns

Returns for earlier periods may need to be “filed” in Sage Accounting, to make sure that old transactions do not appear in the next tax return report. You should check the first tax return you produce in Sage Accounting carefully, to ensure that the numbers are as you would expect.

Allocating payments on account dated prior to "Convert from" date

Any unallocated payments at your “convert from” date that have been allocated after will need to be matched manually when the conversion completes.