How Can a Consulting Accountant Help in a Systems Conversion?

When you decide to say goodbye to your old accounting system a consulting accountant can manage the multi-stage process ahead. Bringing in an outsourced accountant is a great way to ensure that the migration will be done correctly to minimize the time and effort required to make a change of this magnitude and reduce headaches and hassles along the way. Find out how a consulting accountant can help throughout every stage of an accounting platform conversion:

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​Pre-Planning
Ideally, an outsourced accountant will be brought in early in the process to help with pre-planning activities. Before a plan is put together regarding how to switch systems a third-party accountant can help their client determine where they’re going and what getting there is going to look like. When needed, they can also do a cost-benefit analysis of switching to ensure that it’s worth it to make a change now instead of waiting.

A consulting accountant can help analyze business needs to make recommendations on which accounting platform will be the best fit. They will look at aspects like the company’s:

• Unique goals
• Budget
• Compliance needs
• Employee skill levels
• Industry standards
• Planned growth initiatives

These criteria will help them to select the right accounting software to not only meet the company where they are today but serve them well into the future. 

Project Planning
Once a new platform is identified (whether this happens with the guidance from a third-party accountant or independently before they’re brought in) an accounting consultant will help to create an overall timeline for the project with key milestones along the way. They will also determine which resources are needed to complete the migration on schedule and on budget. Finally, they will clean up data to prepare the company’s books for the migration. These early planning steps are essential to ensuring an accounting system conversion goes off without a hitch, and yet they are the steps that are most often overlooked when companies handle their migrations in-house.

Data Migration
With the initial planning done the data migration itself can begin. Data mapping will be used to ensure that everything is brought over and classified correctly. The goal is to safeguard against data loss or corruption during the import. Of course, this needs to be done with minimal business disruption and downtime. Once everything is brought over data testing and validation will occur to ensure the migration went as expected.

System Configuration
Every accounting system will have a wide variety of settings and options that can be customized to reflect business and industry-specific needs. Configuring these correctly is more than a matter of preferences – it’s an essential step in ensuring that the platform is going to meet the company’s needs and conform to its accounting processes. These processes may include not only daily bookkeeping tasks, but also internal controls and third-party integrations for things like payroll and benefits.

Post-Migration Support
When an accounting system conversion is complete it’s easy to breathe a big sigh of relief and go back to business as usual. However, this lack of support after the migration can cause problems down the road that make it look like the system conversion was a mistake or a failure. This is why it’s so important to lean on an experienced third-party accountant to offer perspective and unbiased feedback. A consulting accountant can provide post-migration support that’s tailored to a company’s specific needs, including:

• Training staff on the new system
• Creating an accounting manual to document new processes
• Ensuring the system’s capabilities are being fully utilized
• Reviewing accounting performance to look for further improvement opportunities

Using a consulting accountant is a great way to avoid an after-migration efficiency slump or stifled business growth. Remember, there’s no point in carrying the ball this far only to drop it right before the end zone goal line!

When you need help with an accounting systems conversion, we can help! Our team of top US-based accountants can come alongside your company for the pre-planning, planning, data migration, and system configuration stages. After the conversion is done, our accounting consultants will also help with post-migration support to ensure everything runs smoothly moving forward. We have experience with all of today’s major accounting platforms and have managed countless systems conversions successfully, so you can trust us with your accounting system migration. Contact us today to find out more!