Xero: training and migrating from other accounting software

Xero training and migrating from other accounting packages

Xero is tonnes more intuitive than traditional accounting packages, but it still takes a bit of getting used to – particularly if you don’t have an accounting background.

The good news is that once it is well set up and running with a few time saving plug ins – it will save you a lot of time, and will mean that your bookkeeping and data entry costs will be a fraction of what they would have been under the traditional regime.

But not getting the Xero system set up properly in the first place can lead to an expensive accountancy bill to sort it all out later. So we offer all of our clients the opportunity to take tutorials and training, so that they get the most out of it. This is particularly important for owner-managers, who would have previously asked their accountant or bookkeeper a question or requested a report, but a bit of training can get the information they want more quickly and without needing to pay someone to give them the answer.

Migrations from other systems

A significant proportion of the UK’s small businesses are still run on desktop versions of Sage, which is particularly unfriendly to the non-accountant. After seeing the success of Xero, Sage launched their own cloud based software, but in our experience, most small business owners still ask us to help them move from Sage to Xero.

Migrating between accounting software systems is perfectly possible, but importing the right data and getting Xero set up correctly takes quite a bit of time and effort, even for Xero certified accountants like us. And so we have a team of accountants who specialise in exactly this process.

We’ve never yet met a client who has regretted moving to Xero, so for many small businesses it is a question of if, not when, they make the move. Given the time saving and costs benefits of moving from traditional software to a platform like Xero are normally pretty compelling, there is often no reason to delay. Migrating mid-year is certainly possible – it takes a bit more work to get it up and running properly and synchronised – otherwise the year end is often a good point. Xero's very helpful payments and receipt processing capability can be added shortly afterwards.

If you are thinking of moving your business to Xero, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.