Cloud Accounting Migration: A Complete Guide With Phases

A mobile app or a browser on the web is all a user needs to access their accounts– all via cloud accounting. If you’re tired of delaying your operations because of traditional accounting drawbacks, it’s time to upgrade to this modern approach. This involves cloud accounting migration, where the focus lies on transitioning an organization’s digital assets into a cloud-based environment.

Migrating to the cloud offers a greater chance to increase the efficiency of your operations while saving time, money, and effort. Your employees will feel empowered with any time, anywhere access, better agility, flexibility, simplified IT, scalability, and much more.

In this guide, we’ll cover how to migrate to cloud accounting, with in-depth details of every phase.

What Does Cloud Accounting Migration Entail?

Cloud migration involves shifting your accounting database, services, IT resources, and applications into the cloud. The accounting system migration can be from traditional digital assets (completely or partially) or another cloud.

Moving to the cloud environment to reap the cloud accounting benefits requires formulating a proper strategy. It begins with understanding if this migration is in your best interest, and then taking steps towards it. The process involves careful data migration, and maintaining data integrity and accuracy in the process.

Cloud Accounting Migration: Phases Of The Process

Migrating from QuickBooks to cloud accounting or from traditional databases involves going through the following phases:

Phase 1: Pre-Migration Planning

Before making this move, you need to be clear if migration is the best option for you. You may think of migrating to cloud accounting software for small businesses if your existing processes are inefficient, unscalable, or not adaptable to the changing times.

Once you’ve defined that the existing accounting system is not for you, you can start evaluating the cloud accounting benefits and how it can add value to your business. This involves setting objectives for the migration– is it a technology exercise? Do you want it for easy scalability? What specific outcomes do you expect from the accounting migration move to the cloud?

The migration objectives can set the tone for your cloud migration strategies. It will also guide you on the cloud accounting options. Since the market has many cloud accounting software, you can pick the one that fits your needs and goals. You should also evaluate based on ease of use, features, integration capabilities, cost, scalability, user reviews, and customer support.

Phase 2: Data Migration

The heavy lifting kickstarts during data migration. You have to choose the data to migrate based on your operations. You may have financial data like ledgers, accounts receivables, payables, and related reports. You’ll have to update your customer and vendor details, including payment history, contact information, and account.

There may be inventory data details like stock levels, item descriptions, and pricing. Lastly, the accounting migration will involve payroll data– employee information, salaries, and tax records.

Before migrating the data, you must prime it in the existing structure. If you put in clean data, you’ll get out just that. So, remove any irrelevant, outdated, or incorrect data and fix any errors before the cloud accounting system setup and configuration.

Then, you need to execute the process through data migration methods– manual, import-export, or automated migration tools. Ensure the approach you choose keeps your data secure and maintains its integrity. For example, a $25000 entry might appear as $2500.00 upon moving, indicating a significant discrepancy.

After the cloud accounting setup, validating data will help ensure accuracy. You can do so by backing up your data in a secure place and matching it after updating it to the cloud. Furthermore, make sure no duplicates or outdated records remain before as well as after migration.

Phase 3: System Setup And Configuration

Now comes the cloud system configuration and setup stage for your business. Creating user accounts, setting permissions, customizing workflows, and handling servers, storage, and networks are a part of this phase.

You can tailor the setup and preferences for a chart of accounts, tax rates and codes, payment terms, as well as reporting preferences. You can also seamlessly integrate your accounting operations with other tools in the cloud environment.

These tools include payment gateways, CRM systems, project management tools, and payroll software.

Phase 4: Testing And Training

After the cloud accounting setup, test how the new systems operate. They must meet the performance benchmarks and operate perfectly. The application should also be running smoothly, especially for individuals’ payroll, invoicing, reporting, etc., operations. The tests will give you a rundown of issues to fix.

When you’re confident of the best cloud migration setup, you’ll need to teach your staff for a successful transition to the new systems. Training staff on cloud accounting software involves in-person workshops, virtual training sessions, guides and tutorials, and support resources.

While training and testing, challenges may arise that are unforeseen or may not be on your radar before. These may range from resistance to change and complexity in navigating features to errors in data or workflows. Addressing them will make sure your organization adapts to the new cloud environment without problems.

Phase 5: Go-Live And Post Migration Support

Lastly, your cloud accounting setup goes live with the announcement to your team and stakeholders. Give them transparent instructions on operating the system and upkeep with the post-migration support.

There must be ongoing support and training for your employees so they can adapt to cloud accounting easily. The customer support must be bystanding for continuous troubleshooting assistance. Periodic system reviews must be scheduled for optimized usage.

You must undertake system performance tracking and get feedback from the users to see where to improve. The analytics and reporting tools can be used to compare the efficiency gains, accuracy betterment, and money savings.

Bottom Line

Cloud accounting migration goes through all the phases- planning, preparation, migration, setup, testing, and launch. You need to follow careful strategies throughout the process to ensure a successful transition. The transformative migration to the cloud will keep you up-to-date with the modern world while enhancing your efficiency. Although the process is a bit complex, the effort is worth the benefits. So, reap the advantages and enjoy successful migration.