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When moving off Xero makes sense, and when it does not
Xero is good at its core job: a clean cloud ledger, bank feeds and invoicing for small teams. If that still describes you, stay. A move to Business Central adds setup, posting groups and permissions that a small finance team may not need.
The case changes when inventory lives in one app, purchasing approvals in another, and multi-entity reporting in a spreadsheet. Business Central holds those in one database with one set of permissions. It also adds features Xero leaves to partner apps, such as warehouse locations, assembly, intercompany posting and consolidation.
After one talk about how your month-end actually runs, we will say which side of that line you are on.
Xero data you can export yourself
- ✓Chart of accounts, exported from the accounts screen as a CSV file.
- ✓Contacts, exported to CSV with addresses, tax numbers and default accounts.
- ✓Trial balance at the cutover date, from the reports menu, exported to Excel.
- ✓Aged receivables detail and aged payables detail, listing every open invoice and bill with due dates.
- ✓Account transactions, for monthly movements by account and by tracking option.
- ✓Products and services, with codes, descriptions, prices and, for tracked items, quantities and cost.
Contacts, tracking and items: the mapping calls
One contact, two roles
Xero keeps customers and suppliers in a single contacts list, and one contact can be both. Business Central separates customers and vendors. A contact you both buy from and sell to becomes a customer and a vendor. A shared contact record links the two, so you can net the balances.
Tracking categories become dimensions
Xero limits how many tracking categories can be active at once. So businesses often squeeze two ideas, such as region and product line, into one category. Business Central allows many dimensions, two of them global. That makes the move a good time to pull apart what you combined.
Tracked and untracked items
Xero's tracked inventory items become Business Central inventory items, with opening quantities valued at Xero's average cost. Untracked items become service or non-inventory items. We drop them if they only exist to fill in invoice lines.
Repeating invoices and bills
Repeating templates do not export as templates. We rebuild them as recurring sales lines or recurring journals, and it is worth checking that you still want each one.
Connected apps need a new home
A typical Xero company might use one app for stock, one for expenses, one for approvals and one for payroll. Each keeps its own data and pushes summaries into Xero. After a Xero to Business Central migration, every app has three possible futures. A standard feature may replace it, an AppSource app built for Business Central may replace it, or you keep it and reconnect it through an API.
Most teams replace inventory apps, since Business Central handles items, locations and purchasing directly. Most keep payroll apps, because Business Central has no built-in US payroll. Expense and approval apps depend on what your team likes using. We list each app with its data, its owner and its future. That list becomes part of the cutover plan.
One practical point: switch off each app's Xero sync on cutover day, so nothing new lands in the old ledger.
Reconciling the first Business Central month against Xero
- 1
Lock Xero at cutover
Set the Xero lock date to the cutover date so nobody posts into the closed period by mistake.
- 2
Match the opening trial balance
At cutover, the Business Central trial balance must equal the Xero trial balance account by account. Tracking options match to dimension values.
- 3
Tie out receivables and payables
We compare customer and vendor aging in Business Central with Xero's aged receivables and payables detail, invoice by invoice.
- 4
Reconcile the bank
The first Business Central bank reconciliation starts from the last reconciled Xero statement balance. Any unreconciled Xero lines load as open entries.
- 5
Close month one and compare
After the first month in Business Central, we compare key balances and margins with the run rate from Xero. A big swing usually points to a mapping to fix now rather than at year-end.
Xero migration questions
Is there a built-in Xero migration tool in Business Central?
We are not aware of a standard Microsoft tool for Xero in the way there is one for Dynamics GP. The migration uses Xero's own exports or its API, mapped and loaded through Business Central configuration packages and journals. That is not a drawback: Xero data is usually tidy and well structured, so the mapping itself is simple.
Will we lose our bank feeds?
Xero's bank feeds stay with Xero. Business Central imports bank statements into bank reconciliation and matches them to ledger entries automatically. AppSource apps offer bank feed connections for many banks. We set up whichever route your bank supports and test it before cutover.
Can we bring Xero attachments across?
Not automatically. Invoices and receipts attached in Xero stay there. Keep read access to the Xero organization or export the files you need. From go-live on, Business Central lets you attach files to documents and posted records. New paperwork then lives next to the transaction.
Some of our customers pay in other currencies. Does that matter?
Business Central handles multiple currencies as standard. Each company has a local currency, and customers, vendors and bank accounts can carry foreign currencies with exchange rates. We load open foreign-currency invoices in their original currency, so exchange gains and losses post correctly on payment.
How do we get a price?
We scope it in writing first, based on your entities, your connected apps and how much history you want. The scoping call sets the plan, and you commit to nothing until you have read the written scope.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.