Welcome to the Fit Small Business,
Xero training course. In this lesson we're
going to cover how to import a chart of
account into Xero to follow along with
me
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this link to access our full Xero course
and other helpful resources. Let's get started.
Before you can import your chart
of accounts it is ideal to have your old
list in an Excel or CSV format so that
you can easily copy and paste the
information to the chart of account's
template we will download from Xero. Most
accounting software programs will give
you the option to download your chart of
accounts list into a spreadsheet format
If your current accounting software does
not allow you to do this then you will
have to manually key the information
into the Xero chart of accounts template.
Once you've got your list you are ready
to import your chart of accounts into Xero.
From your Xero dashboard you want
to go ahead and navigate to the chart of
accounts by clicking on the settings
and general settings.
Right below reports, select chart of accounts
From the chart of accounts screen you want to click on
the import button here and then you'll
be able to find the chart of accounts
template right below this example file
So you want to go ahead and click on
this file so that the excel template
will download to your computer and then
we will make preparations to set it up
for the import.
An Excel template similar to this one should have downloaded to
your computer be sure to save the
template before you start working with
it. As you can see there are a total of
nine columns in this template, however,
the only required columns are the first
four. Please note that if you have
foreign currency accounts you cannot
import those accounts. Instead, remove all
foreign currency accounts from the
spreadsheet. You will need to turn on the
multiple currency feature first and then
add foreign currency accounts to the
chart of accounts individually to assign
the appropriate currency.
In the how to set up multiple currency lesson we walk
you through the
steps to turn on this feature.
Click here to access this lesson.
Once that is completed, watch the how to set up a bank
account lesson to learn how to set up
foreign currency bank accounts.
Click here to access this lesson.
Now I would like to share some tips with you on
formatting your import file.
Tip #1: every column must have a column header, as you can see here.
Tip #2: You can have a
maximum of 700 rows, one column header,
and 699 accounts.
If you have more than 699 accounts to import you will need to
manually add any additional accounts to
Xero. Be sure to check out how to set up
a chart of accounts lesson for
step-by-step instructions on how to add
an account manually. Click here to access this lesson.
Tip #3: If you decide
not to provide information for one of
the optional fields, for example the
balance column, you can either delete
that column or leave the column heading
and just make sure all the sales are
blank as we have done here.
Tip #4: Format the code column as text.
You can find instructions on how to do this by
clicking the link below this video.
Tip #5: Save the file in a CSV format.
Now let's walk through the steps to
import your chart of accounts into Xero
Let's go ahead and return back to our
chart of accounts so we can import our
spreadsheet. So from the settings menu go
ahead and select general settings, chart
of accounts and let's go back to where
we were before and select the import button.
Before we can import our
spreadsheet into Xero we've got to check
off a couple things.
So first, what system are you importing
from? This will automatically be selected
as 0. This is because even when you
import
chart of accounts from another system
you must format all of the data using
the Xero template like we just did
together. Does the file you're importing
contain account balances? So either say
yes if you included information in that
last column or say no if you left it
blank like we did for ours.
Once you've answered those two questions the next
step is to just click the Browse button
and locate the file that you saved as a CSV.
Once you have selected the file that
you want to import you should see the
name of the file here to the right of
the Browse button.
Once you see that, go ahead and click the import button.
In this screen we have one last opportunity
to review and confirm the total accounts
that will be imported. If for some reason
you find an error, you want to go ahead
and click the cancel button to stop the import.
So from this screen as you can
see we've got a section that says
"Includes".
This part of the summary provides a breakdown of the total number
of accounts that will be imported.
You've got six new accounts, three updated
accounts and eight system accounts that
were not updated.
We've also got some accounts that will be excluded.
So let's talk about new accounts:
A new account is any account that did not previously
exist in Xero or it's an existing
account that you changed the code for.
An updated account is an existing account
in Xero that you changed either the name
or the description of.
System accounts: If the chart of accounts
that you import does not include the
required Xero system accounts, these will
be included in the new accounts created
and cannot be deleted. System accounts
are set up by Xero for a specific
purpose. for example accounts payable and
accounts receivable RS system accounts.
For more information on what system
accounts are and how they work, check out
the how to set up a chart of accounts
lesson. To access this lesson click this link.
Now let's talk about accounts that
were deleted or
archived. In this example, we have 49 accounts
that will be deleted or archived. If you
are importing a chart of accounts and one
already exists in Xero, it will delete or
archive any account that is not in your
import file. If the account was
previously used in a transaction then it
will be archived so that your financial
statements remain intact. However, if the
account has never been used then it will
be deleted since it will have no impact
on your financial statements.
To learn more about deleted versus archived
accounts, check out the how do I set up a
chart of accounts lesson.
You can click here to access this lesson.
Once you're satisfied that everything here matches
what your spreadsheet has, go ahead and
click the confirm button to import the data.
Once you have completed the import
you should be able to see the accounts
that you imported in your chart of
accounts list here.
That wraps up the lesson on how to import a chart of
accounts into Xero. To access our full
Xero course or any of the other lessons
in this series click this link. You can
also find a link below this video for a
free 30-day trial of Xero.
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