Moving to CUNNTAS

Changing accounting software should not mean abandoning the financial history of your Organisation or spending weeks rebuilding information that already exists.

CUNNTAS has been designed to make moving from an existing accounting system as structured and understandable as possible.

Whether an Organisation currently uses Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, another accounting system, spreadsheets or manually maintained records, CUNNTAS provides a framework for establishing the Organisation, bringing forward appropriate accounting information and beginning work with a coherent opening position.

An Organisation can also choose to start from scratch where importing historical records is unnecessary or undesirable.

The objective is simple: moving accounting software should be a controlled accounting process, not merely a transfer of files.

1. Two Ways to Begin

When establishing an Organisation in CUNNTAS, the appropriate starting point depends upon its circumstances.

An Organisation may:

Start from scratch, establishing new CUNNTAS accounting records from an agreed commencement date; or

Import existing accounting information, bringing appropriate records from its previous accounting system into CUNNTAS.

Neither approach is automatically correct for every Organisation.

A newly formed company may have little or no accounting history to import. An established business may have years of useful customer, Supplier, transaction and financial information that it wishes to retain.

CUNNTAS is designed to accommodate both.

2. Moving from Existing Accounting Software

Many Organisations adopting CUNNTAS will already use another accounting product.

CUNNTAS is being designed to support the import and mapping of information originating from established accounting platforms, including:

• Xero
• Sage
• QuickBooks

The precise information available for import depends upon the records that can be exported from the previous system and the quality and completeness of that information.

CUNNTAS does not assume that every accounting platform stores information in exactly the same way.

3. Moving from Spreadsheets or Other Records

An Organisation does not necessarily need to be moving from another cloud-accounting product.

Some businesses maintain part or all of their accounting information using spreadsheets, desktop systems or other records.

Where suitable structured information can be provided, CUNNTAS can support an appropriate process for establishing the Organisation's opening accounting position.

The objective is not to force every source into an identical import process, but to preserve the accounting information that is genuinely useful and reliable.

4. Start from Scratch

Sometimes the best approach is not to import historical transactions.

An Organisation may choose to begin using CUNNTAS from a particular accounting date and establish the balances necessary to continue its accounts from that point.

This may be appropriate for a newly formed Organisation, an Organisation with very limited historical activity, or a business whose existing accounting records do not justify a full transaction-level migration.

Starting from scratch does not mean ignoring existing financial obligations.

Opening bank balances, Customer and Supplier balances, assets, liabilities, VAT positions and other relevant accounting information must still be established appropriately where they exist.

5. Choosing the Migration Date

An established Organisation should have a clearly defined point at which CUNNTAS becomes its accounting system.

Depending upon the circumstances, this might be:

• The beginning of a financial year
• The beginning of an accounting period
• The beginning of a VAT period
• A month end
• Another appropriate agreed date

Choosing a clear migration date helps distinguish transactions belonging to the previous system from those to be maintained through CUNNTAS.

6. Importing a Defined Date Range

An Organisation may not want or need every transaction it has ever recorded.

CUNNTAS is being designed to allow an appropriate import range to be selected, including periods based upon a month, year or custom date range where supported.

This allows the Organisation to balance the benefit of retaining detailed historical information against the complexity and volume of importing records that may no longer be useful for everyday accounting.

7. Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts is fundamental to the migration process.

Different accounting systems may use different account numbers, names, classifications and structures.

CUNNTAS therefore cannot safely assume that an account called “Sales” or numbered “4000” in another system necessarily has precisely the accounting classification expected within CUNNTAS.

Imported accounts must be mapped appropriately.

8. Adopt or Map an Existing Chart

Where appropriate, an Organisation may be able to retain useful elements of its existing Chart of Accounts.

Alternatively, existing accounts can be mapped to the appropriate CUNNTAS accounting structure.

This allows an Organisation to preserve meaningful reporting classifications without carrying forward unnecessary or incompatible structures merely because they existed in the previous software.

9. Accounting Frameworks

Migration is not simply a technical exercise.

The Organisation's accounting records must ultimately operate within the Accounting Framework applicable to it.

CUNNTAS is designed to support controlled Accounting Frameworks and mappings, including appropriate UK financial-reporting structures.

Where relevant, this can include frameworks associated with FRS 102 and accounting requirements applicable to charities.

The migration process should therefore consider not only what an account was called in the previous system but what it represents within the Organisation's financial statements.

10. Opening Balances

Where historical transaction detail is not being imported completely, appropriate opening balances establish the financial position from which CUNNTAS continues.

These may include balances relating to:

• Bank Accounts
• Customers and Trade Debtors
• Suppliers and Trade Creditors
• VAT
• PAYE and payroll liabilities
• Loans
• Fixed Assets
• Other Assets and Liabilities
• Capital, reserves or retained earnings

Opening balances must preserve the integrity of the double-entry accounting system.

They cannot simply be entered as unrelated figures without considering the corresponding accounting entries.

11. Customers

Existing Customer information can be brought into CUNNTAS where suitable records are available.

This may include Customer identity and contact information together with relevant opening balances or transaction information.

Where unpaid Sales Invoices are being brought forward, the migration should preserve enough information to understand what the Customer owes rather than representing the entire receivable merely as an unexplained balance where more useful detail is available.

12. Suppliers

The same principle applies to Suppliers.

Existing Supplier information and outstanding Purchase transactions can be established within CUNNTAS where appropriate.

This allows subsequent Supplier payments to be reconciled against identifiable liabilities rather than against a single unexplained opening figure.

13. Outstanding Sales Invoices

Where Customers owe money at the migration date, those outstanding amounts need to form part of the opening receivables position.

Where supported by the available source information, CUNNTAS can preserve individual outstanding Sales Invoices so that later Customer payments can be allocated correctly.

This provides better continuity than importing only the total Trade Debtors balance.

14. Outstanding Purchase Invoices

Outstanding Supplier liabilities should receive equivalent treatment.

Where individual unpaid Purchase Invoices are available, maintaining those records allows future payments to be matched against the liabilities to which they relate.

The total of those outstanding records should agree with the appropriate opening Trade Creditors position.

15. Bank Accounts

Existing bank accounts can be established within the CUNNTAS Organisation.

Appropriate opening balances can then form part of the migration position.

Where the bank account is to use CUNNTAS connected banking, the account can subsequently be connected through the supported banking or Open Banking process.

CUNNTAS does not require Users to manually rewrite connected bank-statement information merely to reproduce the presentation of their previous accounting software.

16. Banking Cut-Off

Particular care is required around the migration date.

Transactions already accounted for in the previous system must not be accidentally recorded again merely because they subsequently appear through a connected bank feed.

CUNNTAS therefore needs a clear banking cut-off so that imported accounting information and newly obtained banking information can be reconciled without duplicating historical activity.

17. VAT

VAT migration requires particular care.

An Organisation may move to CUNNTAS part way through a VAT year or after previous VAT Returns have already been submitted.

Historical VAT transactions must not be treated as new VAT activity merely because they have been imported.

The migration process should therefore distinguish between historical information, transactions already included in filed returns and activity that remains relevant to an open VAT period.

18. Making Tax Digital

Where an Organisation is subject to Making Tax Digital for VAT, moving accounting systems must preserve the integrity of the digital VAT records.

CUNNTAS is designed to maintain VAT information as part of the underlying digital accounting records.

The transition to CUNNTAS should therefore establish a clear point from which CUNNTAS becomes the system maintaining the applicable MTD records and supporting subsequent VAT filing.

19. VAT Groups

Migration can be more complex where several Organisations belong to a VAT group.

Each member Organisation must retain its own accounting records while relevant VAT information contributes to the group-level VAT process.

CUNNTAS is designed so that member Organisations can be migrated individually and then associated with the appropriate VAT group structure.

This avoids having to merge the individual companies' accounting histories simply because they participate in the same VAT registration.

20. Payroll Migration

An Organisation moving payroll to CUNNTAS may already have processed employees during the current tax year.

The payroll migration therefore needs to consider more than the employee's current salary.

Where supported, appropriate employee and year-to-date information can be established so that subsequent payroll calculations recognise relevant payroll history.

This is particularly important where CUNNTAS is adopted part way through a tax year.

21. Employee Information

Payroll migration may involve information including:

• Employee identity and contact information
• Employment details
• Tax Codes
• National Insurance information
• Pay arrangements
• Pension information
• Year-to-date pay and deductions
• Other relevant payroll information

Because payroll contains sensitive personal information, imported payroll data is subject to the same CUNNTAS security and data-protection controls as information created directly within the platform.

22. Corporation Tax

An Organisation moving to CUNNTAS may already have completed accounting periods or Corporation Tax filings.

Historical information should therefore be distinguished from accounting periods for which CUNNTAS will support subsequent Corporation Tax administration.

Importing historical accounts does not mean that CUNNTAS should attempt to file a second Corporation Tax return for a period that has already been completed.

Clear accounting and tax-period boundaries form part of an appropriate migration.

23. Groups of Companies

A business owner may be moving several related companies to CUNNTAS.

Each company should be established as its own Organisation with its own financial records.

Those Organisations can then be associated within the appropriate CUNNTAS group structure.

This allows group relationships to be maintained for supported VAT and Corporation Tax functions without destroying the separate accounting identity of each legal entity.

24. Departments

Where an Organisation already uses Departments, cost centres or similar classifications, appropriate mappings can be considered during migration.

The objective is to retain useful management information without importing obsolete classifications that no longer reflect the way the Organisation operates.

Departments can then continue to provide analysis within CUNNTAS after the migration.

25. Historical Transactions

Where detailed historical transactions are imported, CUNNTAS can retain them as part of the Organisation's financial history.

Historical information must nevertheless be distinguished appropriately from transactions created through CUNNTAS after the migration date.

The fact that a transaction is imported should not cause it to be treated as a newly issued Invoice, newly incurred Purchase or new VAT event.

26. Documents

An existing accounting system may contain documents or attachments associated with financial transactions.

The availability and form of those documents depends upon what the previous provider allows the Organisation to export.

Where appropriate documents can be migrated, they can remain associated with the relevant financial records within the CUNNTAS environment where supported.

Organisations should not assume that another software provider will necessarily make every historical attachment available in a readily transferable format.

27. Audit History

Not every element of another platform's internal audit history can necessarily be recreated within CUNNTAS.

CUNNTAS can identify imported information and maintain its own audit history for activity occurring after information enters the platform.

We will not fabricate a CUNNTAS User audit trail for actions that occurred in another accounting system before migration.

Where source audit information can appropriately be retained as historical information, it should remain distinguishable from native CUNNTAS audit events.

28. Checking the Import

An import should not be considered complete merely because a file was accepted successfully.

The resulting CUNNTAS records should be checked against appropriate control information from the previous system.

Depending upon the migration, this may include comparison of:

• Trial Balance
• Bank balances
• Trade Debtors
• Trade Creditors
• VAT balances
• Payroll liabilities
• Other Balance Sheet accounts
• Profit and Loss information

The objective is to establish that the CUNNTAS opening position accurately reflects the records being transferred.

29. Trial Balance Reconciliation

The Trial Balance provides one of the most important migration controls.

Where an Organisation is transferring an accounting position at a defined date, the resulting CUNNTAS Trial Balance should agree appropriately with the corresponding closing or migration Trial Balance from the previous accounting system.

Differences should be investigated rather than hidden through unexplained balancing entries.

30. Do Not Make the Numbers Fit

CUNNTAS is built around accounting integrity.

If imported records do not reconcile, the solution should not simply be to create an unexplained adjustment that forces the totals to agree.

The difference should be identified and understood.

There may be a legitimate reason for an adjustment, but that adjustment should have an identifiable accounting purpose.

Migration should improve the reliability of the Organisation's records, not conceal existing discrepancies.

31. Source Information

The quality of a migration depends substantially upon the quality of the information available from the previous system.

CUNNTAS cannot reconstruct information that was never recorded or that the previous provider does not make available for export.

Where source information is incomplete, the Organisation may need to establish an appropriate opening position using other reliable accounting records.

32. Keep Your Original Records

An Organisation should retain appropriate copies or exports of its previous accounting records in accordance with applicable accounting, tax and statutory record-retention requirements.

Moving to CUNNTAS does not remove the Organisation's responsibility to retain historical records it is legally required to keep.

The previous system should not be cancelled or historical information destroyed until the Organisation is satisfied that the necessary records have been obtained and the migration has been appropriately verified.

33. Data Protection

Imported information is subject to the same data-protection principles as information created directly within CUNNTAS.

This includes Customer, Supplier, employee, payroll and other personal information.

The Organisation remains responsible for ensuring that information it imports is held and processed lawfully.

Mayside Partners Limited, trading as CUNNTAS, processes that information in accordance with the CUNNTAS Privacy Policy and Data Protection & Your Data information.

34. Security

Migration does not create a less secure area of the platform.

Imported accounting and payroll information remains protected by CUNNTAS User and Organisation permissions, mandatory Two-Factor Authentication, secure sessions and the other security controls applicable to the platform.

Users should only be permitted to perform or review migration activity where they have appropriate authority for the Organisation concerned.

35. Moving Several Organisations

A User who operates several businesses can move those Organisations to CUNNTAS individually.

Once established, the User can access the Organisations through the same CUNNTAS User Account, subject to the appropriate permissions.

Where those Organisations form part of a group, the relevant group relationships can then be established without merging the individual accounting records.

36. Moving Does Not Mean Starting Over

An Organisation's accounting history belongs to the Organisation, not to the software through which it happened to be recorded.

Changing software should therefore not automatically mean abandoning useful Customer, Supplier, transaction, payroll and financial history.

Where reliable information is available and appropriate to migrate, CUNNTAS is designed to preserve that continuity.

37. Nor Must Everything Be Imported

The opposite is equally important.

An Organisation should not be forced to import years of unnecessary transactional detail merely because it exists.

In some circumstances, a carefully established opening position with appropriate outstanding transactions provides a cleaner and more useful starting point.

CUNNTAS therefore supports the principle of choosing the migration approach appropriate to the Organisation rather than assuming that more imported data is always better.

38. A Controlled Transition

A good migration has a defined process:

• Decide when CUNNTAS will become the accounting system.
• Determine which historical information is required.
• Export the appropriate information from the existing system.
• Map accounting structures correctly.
• Import or establish the required records.
• Reconcile the resulting balances.
• Connect banking at the appropriate cut-off point.
• Establish VAT, payroll and tax positions where applicable.
• Verify the CUNNTAS opening position.
• Retain the historical records required from the previous system.

Only then should the Organisation regard the accounting migration as complete.

39. Help During Migration

Moving accounting systems can involve decisions that depend upon the Organisation's existing records and circumstances.

CUNNTAS is being designed to provide structured migration facilities and contextual Help information throughout the process.

Where an issue requires assistance, CUNNTAS support facilities can provide appropriate guidance and, where necessary and authorised, controlled Support Access.

40. Included in CUNNTAS

The core migration and import facilities provided through CUNNTAS form part of the standard platform.

The Organisation does not need a different accounting subscription merely because it previously used another accounting product.

Where an Organisation requires separately commissioned professional work — for example, extensive reconstruction of incomplete historical accounts or bespoke migration services — any such service and charge would be agreed separately before the work is undertaken.

41. Ready to Move?

Whether an Organisation is moving from Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, spreadsheets or another accounting system, the objective remains the same:

• Preserve what is useful.
• Map it correctly.
• Establish a reliable opening position.
• Do not duplicate transactions.
• Do not compromise accounting integrity merely to make an import balance.
• And give the Organisation a clear point from which CUNNTAS becomes its financial system.

CUNNTAS is designed so that moving accounting software can be a controlled transition rather than a financial restart.

Your accounting history belongs to your Organisation. Your next chapter can begin with CUNNTAS.

The name CUNNTAS is pronounced “KOON-tas”. It comes from the Scottish Gaelic word cunntas, meaning “account”, “accounts”, “accounting” or “reckoning” — a name that reflects both the purpose of the platform and its Scottish identity.

Last Updated: 10 August 2026