hi, I have helped a friend move from Free Agent to Xero for free
the accountant gave me conversion balances but also an "opening balance journal". I've posted both but it seems like the conversion balances are doubled up on accounts with the manual journal adjustments. Not sure what I've done wrong. Does the opening balance journal need to reverse on conversion date to make this work? Or do I need a suspense account to sort this out - in which case can anyone else with the steps I need to sort this please
Hi
So hows about an intro before we start. We always ask newbies!
Usual stuff - what prof body do you belong to, do you work for yourself or in a practice/ firm, are you a bookkeeper or accountant, what qualifications, how long in role, where up to in your studies-what exams passed/with what body/in midst of doing, where based, what you did before this role? That sort of thing. Helps get to know you but also how best to pitch answers.
Whats an ACAM?
Why have they moved from Freeagent out of interest?
Never help friends - it goes against ethics. Besides, they are clearly taking the proverbial if you are doing it for free.
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
thanks for replying I am feeling quite alone right now!
apologies I mis posted my bio I am ACMA 10 years post qualified, spend most of my career as a business analyst, commercial finance manager in large retail businesses so the detailed book keeping is a headache for me although I am competent on Xero for day to day stuff the journals fry my head.
I am now a freelance Finance manager /management accountant but have to do some book keeping as part of most roles. My friends are paying me a small amount but I definitely underestimated the complexities of moving from Free Agent to Xero. I live and learn
From what I understood I just needed the conversion balances and the outstanding invoices and bills to explain the trade debtor and creditor balances. But they have thrown in an "opening balance Journal" to confuse me.
eg accruals account on conversion balance page was £770 credit balance, the journal had £30 credit so I expect the balance on the account after conversion date to be £800 but it is showing £770 and the conversion balance on the Accounts Transactions screen in Xero is showing at £740
hi
thinking about it, if the report I was given was actually a TB (rather than conversion balances), should I just amend the conversion balance opening figures by the journal amount on each of the accounts mentioned in the journal. This does seem to create the right result
Hi Ali
Well, firstly welcome to the madhouse. You will not be feeling alone if you join in with us on here.
I kinda guessed about 15 minutes after posting that you mightve meant it was CIMA related - the thought pinged into my head whilst I was trying to wrestle with Quick Books (hate it!). I take it then that you have a practice licence with them or ith HMRC?
I dont know any regular posters on here who uses zeero (my name for that atrocious piece of ***), but you might be lucky and get someone wandering through (we have a lot of QBO and zero users who seem to just ask questions and never ever read anything else so never see that they can repay the favour and help others). That said, alot of the Qs are not necessarily software specific. In simple terms you should have all closing balances, with as you suggested debtors and creditors split out to show the specifics of invoices etc still o/s, plus the reconciled bank and any entries not yet presented/unreconciled items. Once you key these on the last day of the prior period and roll the year, the opening ones should agree. Ive just done one recently (not on zeero) where the opening balances did not agree, but it turns out the previous Accountant did not have all the supplier invoices that I had, so the accounts were incorrect anyway!!
I would suggest that the Accountant has provided both the conversion balances and the TB so that you can pick and choose the method you want, whilst maybe failing to get that message across. But then your accrual comment makes me wonder if something else is going on. Are the conversion balances at close of play and the opening just that and possibly after some accrual and prepayments reversals have been put through on the 1st day of the period?
A bit hard to know without seeing the info. Do you have the year end accounts to do a comparison?
TBH I wouldnt waste too much time on it - I would just phone said accountant.
thanks for getting back to me, I think the difference was I was given TB plus manual journal (rather than the final conversion balances), so I have amended the conversion balances to be the net of the two and this is working out now.
I should have clarified with them at the beginning but I was asking too many other questions and their goodwill ran out and they said they would start charging the client for extra hours which my friends were not happy about so I have spent a day on google learning ....
I quite like Xero but then I am not used to any other package, I like it because you can create better management accounts than on Free agent and I use Float as an add on tool for cashflow forecasting.
