Implementation & migration
Move to SynqLedger with an opening position you can explain.
Bring across historical trial balances for comparison, open with customer, supplier, stock, fixed asset, bank and payroll year-to-date records, and agree every opening figure to the legacy closing balance before go-live.
Three kinds of information
History, opening position and native activity — kept distinct.
- 1 · Brought across for comparison
Historical information
Period trial balances from the legacy system — monthly or annual totals by account, mapped to your chart of accounts. Each period must balance and carry forward to the next. Individual historical journals, transactions and documents are not migrated; they stay in the legacy system or your archive.
- 2 · Where the business starts operating
Opening position
The balances at go-live, recorded once as a single balanced opening entry. Customer, supplier, stock, fixed asset, bank and payroll year-to-date openings are also brought in as detailed records so work can continue.
- 3 · Recorded in SynqLedger after go-live
Native activity
Every invoice, receipt, payment and journal from go-live onwards, with its own source records. Reports show which figures are historical and which are native.
Migration example
Migration example
One company, one go-live date, every figure agreed.
Legacy closing balances, the detail brought in, and the opening ledger — with one exception found and corrected in rehearsal.
| Position | Detail brought in | Legacy closing | Imported detail | Opening ledger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer balances | 42 open invoices by customer | £486,300 | £486,300 | £486,300 |
| Stock | 312 items, quantity and value | £318,400 | £318,400 | £318,400 |
| Fixed assets (carrying amount) | 14 assets: cost £920,000, accumulated depreciation £410,000, remaining life | £510,000 | £510,000 | £510,000 |
| Bank | 2 accounts, book balance | £264,800 | £264,800 | £264,800 |
| Supplier balances | 31 open invoices by supplier | (£221,700) | (£221,700) | (£221,700) |
| VAT owed | Ledger balance only | (£58,200) | — | (£58,200) |
| Accruals and payroll liabilities | Ledger balance only | (£41,600) | — | (£41,600) |
| Share capital | Ledger balance only | (£100,000) | — | (£100,000) |
| Retained earnings | Legacy closing balance, checked against history | (£1,158,000) | — | (£1,158,000) |
Customer balances
42 open invoices by customer
- Legacy
- £486,300
- Detail
- £486,300
- Opening
- £486,300
Stock
312 items, quantity and value
- Legacy
- £318,400
- Detail
- £318,400
- Opening
- £318,400
Fixed assets (carrying amount)
14 assets: cost £920,000, accumulated depreciation £410,000, remaining life
- Legacy
- £510,000
- Detail
- £510,000
- Opening
- £510,000
Bank
2 accounts, book balance
- Legacy
- £264,800
- Detail
- £264,800
- Opening
- £264,800
Supplier balances
31 open invoices by supplier
- Legacy
- (£221,700)
- Detail
- (£221,700)
- Opening
- (£221,700)
VAT owed
Ledger balance only
- Legacy
- (£58,200)
- Detail
- —
- Opening
- (£58,200)
Accruals and payroll liabilities
Ledger balance only
- Legacy
- (£41,600)
- Detail
- —
- Opening
- (£41,600)
Share capital
Ledger balance only
- Legacy
- (£100,000)
- Detail
- —
- Opening
- (£100,000)
Retained earnings
Legacy closing balance, checked against history
- Legacy
- (£1,158,000)
- Detail
- —
- Opening
- (£1,158,000)
How the totals agree
For each position with detailed records, three figures must agree: the legacy closing balance, the total of the imported detail, and the opening ledger. VAT, accruals and equity arrive through the opening entry only and are agreed to the legacy closing balances.
Retained earnings is not worked out from the other figures. It is the legacy closing balance, checked against the migrated history (2025 and 2026 monthly trial balances) so the story carries across go-live.
Employee records and payroll year-to-date are brought in for continuity, not as balance-sheet amounts. Payroll liabilities owed at go-live sit in the accruals line.
One exception, found in rehearsal
What failed to agree: the first rehearsal imported 41 customer invoices totalling £481,900 against a legacy control total of £486,300 — a £4,400 difference.
Who found it: the software compared the imported detail with the control total and reported the difference. The implementation team traced it to invoice INV-20931, left out of the extract by a filter on customers on credit hold.
Correction: a corrected extract was loaded. It replaced the earlier version, which is kept for audit and not counted again.
Rechecked: the next rehearsal imported 42 invoices totalling £486,300. Difference £0.
Illustrative — not customer data. Fenwick Tooling Ltd, a fictional single UK company reporting in GBP. Legacy extract at close of business 31 December 2026; go-live 1 January 2027.
What can be migrated
The supported scope, and the level of detail.
- Historical financials
- Monthly or annual trial balance totals by account. Not individual journals, transactions or documents.
- Customers and suppliers
- Individual open invoices by customer and supplier, marked as migrated openings.
- Stock
- Opening quantity and value by item, recorded in the one stock ledger.
- Fixed assets
- Opening cost, accumulated depreciation and remaining useful life. Depreciation resumes from go-live only.
- Bank and cash
- Opening book balance for each bank account.
- Employees and payroll
- Employee records through the standard employee workbook, and payroll year-to-date by tax year and pay component — labelled as migrated evidence, never recalculated as pay.
- Several companies
- Each company is migrated and judged ready separately, keeping its own ledger and currency. Historical figures in another currency need recorded exchange rates; a missing rate stops that period.
Where a figure comes from
Every migrated record keeps its path back to the source: the source reference, the uploaded extract and its version, the mapping version used, and the original row as it arrived.
That path ends at the legacy extract. Original legacy documents are not migrated, so they cannot be opened from SynqLedger.
Company openings stay separate from group reporting, which reads each company's ledger without changing it.
Rehearsal and readiness
Check the agreed scope, resolve exceptions, check again.
What the software checks
- Each historical period balances and carries into the next.
- Account codes that are unmapped or ambiguous are listed, never guessed.
- Imported detail is compared with the control total it should match.
- An identical extract loaded twice is recorded but not imported twice.
- Legacy closing, imported detail and opening ledger agree for each position.
What people review and correct
- Agree the migration scope and prepare the legacy extracts.
- Map legacy accounts to the new chart of accounts.
- Investigate each difference and correct the extract, or record why it is legitimate.
- Review the rehearsal results before approving the move.
What stops progress
- A mapping cannot be approved by the person who prepared it.
- An unexplained difference prevents the opening position from being locked.
- If approved source information changes, the approved opening entry cannot run.
- The opening entry is prepared, approved and locked by different people, and once locked it cannot be reopened.
A rehearsal runs the agreed scope, records the results and lists every exception. Exceptions are resolved and the rehearsal is run again; a clean rehearsal with no exceptions is a valid result. Readiness is judged on the latest rehearsal, and every reason a company is not ready is named — it is never a percentage.
Moving to live
Who prepares, what is checked, who decides.
- Step 1
Prepare
Agree scope and dates; prepare extracts and mappings.
Your team, with the implementation team
- Step 2
Rehearse
Run the scope, resolve exceptions, run again.
SynqLedger checks; people correct
- Step 3
Final opening information
Load the final extract at the go-live date. A changed extract replaces the earlier version and is checked again.
Your team loads; SynqLedger checks
- Step 4
Review
Review the reconciliation and any recorded explanations; approve the opening entry.
An accountable person other than the preparer
- Step 5
Decide to start
Post and lock the opening position; begin recording native activity.
Your finance lead
Cutover timing, any pause in legacy trading and a fallback plan are agreed with you in advance. A locked opening position cannot be reopened, run again or reversed; anything found later is corrected with a normal entry after go-live.
Implementation workspace
What each status means.
The workspace shows each company's readiness. Some results are calculated; others are decisions people record.
- Difference
- Legacy closing less opening ledger, per position.
- Balanced
- Debits equal credits for each historical period and the opening entry.
- Continuity
- Each period's closing equals the next period's opening.
- Mapping approved
- A second person approved that mapping version.
- Explained
- A person recorded why a difference is legitimate, with a reference. The difference stays visible.
- Approved
- A person other than the preparer approved the opening entry.
- Locked
- The opening position is posted and can no longer change.
Comparative reporting
Compare the same quarter across go-live.
| Line | Jan–Mar 2026Historical | Jan–Mar 2027Native |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £1,240,000 | £1,318,000 |
| Cost of sales | (£793,600) | (£830,340) |
| Gross profit | £446,400 | £487,660 |
What the columns mean
Historical: migrated monthly trial balance totals for January–March 2026, before go-live on 1 January 2027. Native: activity recorded in SynqLedger for January–March 2027.
Both use the same chart of accounts and report layout, so the lines compare directly.
The difference is illustrative business performance. It is not a result of migrating.
Questions during migration
Where the answers come from.
Is this company ready to go live?
The readiness view names every remaining reason it is not, from the latest rehearsal.
Why don’t customer balances agree?
The reconciliation shows the legacy total, the imported detail and the difference; the lineage shows which extract and rows were used.
Where did this opening figure come from?
The migration record shows the source reference, extract version and mapping version.
SynqLedger Intelligence
The Intelligence preview is available for other finance questions, but it does not answer migration or readiness questions today. These answers come from the implementation workspace. Intelligence never decides readiness or approves a go-live.
About IntelligenceBenefits
What finance teams get from the move.
Keep historical context
Monthly or annual totals from the legacy system, balanced and continuous.
Explain the opening position
Each position agreed to the legacy closing balance and its detailed records.
Find and resolve migration issues
Rehearse, see every difference named, correct and check again.
Compare performance across go-live
Historical and native periods in the same report layout.
Connected across the platform
Related areas.
- Finance & AccountingThe ledger the opening position is posted to.
- Management AccountingReporting and comparisons after go-live.
- Customers & RevenueCustomer invoices and collections.
- Procurement & SpendSupplier invoices and approvals.
- Inventory & OperationsStock quantities and value.
- Fixed AssetsAsset register and depreciation.
- People & PayrollEmployee records and payroll.
- Group & Multi-entityCompany results read together.
Plan your move to SynqLedger.
A guided demo covering migration scope, the source information you would provide, how opening positions are agreed, and how readiness is established. No data is needed for the first conversation.