Migrate your data from Sage 50 Accounts to Sage Business Cloud Accounting

CAUTION: You must run the migration on the computer your Sage 50 Accounts software is installed on. Before you migrate your data, you should check you've completed the preparation steps. 

TIP: We've create a migration tool to help you along your migration journey. Find out more >

Check the location of your accounts data

1. Open Sage 50 Accounts, then on the menu bar, click Help then click About.
2. Under Program Details, make a note of the Data Directory, for example, C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2018\Company.001
3. Under Licence Information, make a note of the Serial Number.
4. Close Sage 50 Accounts.

Select your company

1. On your Windows desktop, double-click the Sage Business Cloud Migration Tool option.
2. Select the company that you want to migrate, or if it doesn't appear, click Browse, then browse to the location you made a note of in the section above.
   
   The folder you browse to must be the one that contains the ACCDATA folder. For example, C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2023\Company.001
   
   
3. Click Next, then enter the manager password for this company, and your serial number then click Next.

Check your company settings

Check your company settings are correct, then check the following:

Map your data

1. Once you're happy with your company settings, click Next.
2. check the chart of accounts is the one you want to use, then click Go.
   
   At the end of the migration, you're asked if you want to save the settings you enter here. To save time on future migrations, you can use the file you save at the end. To do this, the next time you migrate a company, click Load previous settings.
   
   The migration tool automatically matches your chart of accounts and tax codes in Sage 50 Accounts to the defaults in Accounting and highlights any conflicts. Before continuing it's important you check you're happy with the automatic matching.
   
   
3. Next to each of the following, click View all items and check or amend the settings. Once you've done this, click Next.

Report categories

Your nominal codes are matched automatically to the nominal ledger accounts categories in Accounting. You should check these are correct and make any necessary changes.

For bank and credit card accounts to work correctly, they're assigned to the following categories and you can't change them.

• Accounts used to represent bank or cash deposits are assigned to the bank category

• Accounts used to represent credit cards are assigned to the line of credit category

Default accounts

You can overwrite some default accounts when you post transactions in Accounting but not others. Please take the time to check you're happy with the automatic matching of your default codes before continuing and make any necessary changes.

System and control accounts

Accounting has more system and control accounts than Sage 50 Accounts. Where possible, your chart of accounts and nominal codes are matched automatically. However, you need to match some of them manually.

Any mandatory accounts, are marked with an asterisk *. You can't use the same nominal code for more than one system or control account.

Tax codes

Accounting uses preset VAT rates rather than tax codes. You should check your tax codes are matched to the correct VAT rates. You can find out more about the VAT rates in Accounting and which box they affect on the VAT Return form the Accounting Help Centre.

Resolve references

In Sage 50 Accounts you can use the same reference for a customer and a supplier, however in Accounting, the references must be unique.

If you have any duplicate references, the Resolve Account Reference Conflicts window appears. You can either manually amend the references or to automatically resolve them, click Auto-resolve conflicts.

Complete the migration

1. Click Next then click Download Data File.
2. Browse to where you want to save the file, enter a file name and make a note of it, then click Save. You need this file later to import into Accounting.
3. Click OK, then click Finish.
4. To save the settings used to migrate this company, click Yes.
5. Browse to where you want to save the file, enter a file name, for example Sage Business Cloud Accounting migration settings, then click Save.
   
   To save time, you can use this file the next time you migrate a company at the Map data step.
   
   
6. Click OK.

You're now ready to:

• Import a live, or real, client into Accounting

Upgrading your licence

Need a little more room? To add extra companies, users, employees or more to your software licence, leave your details and we'll be in touch.

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