Full history or opening balances?

Why full ledger migrations struggle

Every practice management system models money differently: how a payment is allocated across bills, fees, disbursements and VAT; how fees are apportioned between fee earners; how credits, write-offs and part payments are recorded. Migrating years of transactions means forcing each one into a structure it was never created in.

• The totals can reconcile while the detail does not. A matter's balance comes across correctly, but the bills, allocations and apportionments behind it no longer tell the same story.
• Every historic correction becomes a decision. Manual adjustments, reversals and old errors all need a rule.
• Time and cost grow with every year of history, and so does the reconciliation effort before go-live.

Is it a realistic expectation?

Sometimes. Where the data is clean and the systems are similar, transaction history can come across well. But ask exactly what will be converted and to what level of detail, and insist on a trial migration that is reconciled at transaction level, not just in total. If a vendor cannot show that, plan as if it will not happen.

What do you actually need to see?

• Historic bills: do you need fee apportionment by fee earner on old bills inside the new system, or only for past reports, which an archive can provide?
• Going forward: what must be right from day one? Usually work in progress, unpaid bills, client balances and fee earner credit for new work.
• Day-to-day reference: how often do people really need transaction detail from closed matters, and could they find it somewhere else?

Opening balances: simpler to deliver and to manage

An opening balance migration brings across what the firm needs to carry on, as at the cut-over date:

• client ledger balances for each matter, reconciled to the penny;
• unpaid bills with what is outstanding (and their apportionment, if fee earner credit on receipts matters);
• unbilled time and work in progress;
• unpaid and unbilled disbursements;
• office account balances, ideally at a month or year end.

The new system starts clean, reconciliation is achievable, and the project spends its effort on configuration and training rather than on converting the past.

Keeping the history useful

• Read-only access to the old system, for a defined period. Check the licence cost and how long the vendor will provide it.
• A searchable archive of historic matters, bills and ledgers, so records can be found and produced when needed.
• A data warehouse: historic data loaded into a reporting database, alongside data from the new system, so partners can still see multi-year trends in one place.

Whichever you choose, check it meets your obligations, including how long accounting records and files must be kept, and that you can still produce what a client, auditor or regulator might ask for.

What to ask, and what to see

1. What exactly would a full migration convert, and to what level of detail?
2. Show a trial migration reconciled at transaction level, and how a historic bill appears afterwards.
3. Compare the cost and timetable of full history with opening balances plus an archive or data warehouse.
4. How would historic data be searched, reported on and produced if needed?