Chart of Accounts

Chart of Accounts

All accounts including bank accounts come across in the conversion regardless of their status. This is because there may be transactions associated with these accounts. If you have accounts that you do not want to use you can archive them in Xero following conversion. We recommend you archive accounts only where there is a $0 account balance. The Xero Help article is available here: Deleting or Archiving Accounts

NOTE: From time to time when extracting transactional data from the source file we find that when a chart of account type bank no longer exists in the chart of accounts whether active or inactive,  we create an account titled Reconciliation account to bring the data into Xero. During the quality assurance process the team will handle these items individually to ensure that the missing chart of account is created and maintained if necessary.

Header accounts will come into Xero as another chart of account and you may need to customise reports in Xero post-conversion to reflect the appearance of the source file report. Xero Custom Reports

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. If your Chart of Accounts contains over 990 accounts the Credit Cards and Paypal accounts will convert as bank accounts. If you need to change the account type in Xero please refer to these instructions.

Account Numbers

Account numbers are as per the source data unless:

1. There are over 990 Chart of Accounts, in this case the hyphen will not appear as the Xero API does not allow non-alphanumeric characters.
   
2. Where account numbers are more than 10 characters, in this case, we will truncate.
   
3. Where there are no numbers in the source file - in this case we create a number as it is required by Xero (typically it will be NoCode followed by a number). You can choose to turn on Chart of account numbers prior to conversion or update the numbering system post conversion.
   

Account Name

1. The Xero account description is limited to a field length of 150 characters. Where the description exceeds Xero limits, it will be truncated with a number suffix.  
   
2. Please ensure that there are no duplicate names in the Chart of Accounts.

Header Accounts

The Accounts in the Xero Chart of Accounts in Xero need to have a unique name. Often header and sub accounts can be the same e.g. 'Truck 1' is the header account with sub account 'Repairs and maintenance' then 'Truck 2' header account also has a sub account 'Repairs and maintenance'. To avoid issues in Xero we bring across the sub-account with the header account as a prefix. 

If you would like to address this:

Option 1 - Prior to Conversion - Delete the header accounts from the source software and make sure that the Chart of Account names are unique.

Option 2 - Post Conversion - The most efficient way to update this information is in bulk. This includes exporting the Chart of Accounts from Xero, updating the details and re-importing this information back into Xero.

Header accounts will come into Xero as another GL account and you may need to customise reports in Xero post-conversion to reflect the appearance of the source file report.

Bank accounts

Note that bank account numbers, including BSBs, do not convert and will need to be added in Xero following conversion.

Default Tax Codes

Default tax codes are reproduced per your original accounts as closely as possible. If the default tax codes were not set up then they will display as “BAS Excluded” in Xero. You can easily update the “default tax codes” in Xero in order to speed up the creation of invoices, bills, manual journals and the reconciliation process.

For more information, click on this link to Xero Help for changing default tax codes.

Report Codes

Report Codes are not matched into Xero. The report codes in other accounting systems do not match those available in Xero. A great method to standardise accounts and report codes is to use the premium option with the Custom Chart of Account service. It supports report codes available to Advisors to provide customised financial reports as well as those who use Xero Tax and Xero HQ.

Once you have customised the chart of accounts please see the options for adding the report codes post-conversion:

Option 1: Review & Map accounts – Please see here for assistance

Option 2: Import Report codes – if you have used report codes in another organisation you export and import the report codes. Please see here for assistance.

Custom Change Your Chart of Accounts

Using a standard Chart of Accounts across all your Xero organisations works nicely to streamline your report packs and provide ready comparisons. However, getting there can be a pile of work if you import the Chart of Accounts as it is in the source file and tailor it later in Xero.  The Custom Chart of Accounts premium service enables you to choose how the Chart of Accounts will appear in Xero. The source file history will then present in Xero as though it had been run through this new Chart of Accounts.

Please see here for more information.

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