Tax Advice
This post was updated in December 2024.
Making the Switch to FreshBooks? When Your Business Should Make the Move
Thinking about upgrading your accounting software to FreshBooks? You’re not alone—many businesses choose FreshBooks as their accounting software solution for its user-friendly interface and powerful features. But for a smooth transition when migrating your books, timing is everything.
The migration process involves more than just signing up and logging in. From transferring data like invoices, bills, charts of accounts, and payment records to ensuring all transactions align seamlessly, the shift requires careful planning. Whether you’re managing payroll, submitting estimates, or working with accountants, choosing the right moment to migrate can save you both time and headaches.
In this post, we’ll explore the optimal time for your business to make the move to FreshBooks, discuss how to prepare for data migration, and highlight the features that make this switch worth it. If you’re ready to manage your records with less time and effort, let’s dive in!
The Best Time of Year to Switch to FreshBooks
Timing your transition to FreshBooks is essential to ensuring a seamless migration. Moving your financial data, such as invoices, payroll records, and your chart of accounts, is far easier at strategic points in your business cycle—typically the beginning or end of a fiscal period, such as tax season or the start of a new year.
For most small businesses, the beginning of the calendar or fiscal year is the optimal time to switch. Here’s why:
- Simplified data migration: Starting fresh on January 1 allows you to transfer financial data, including prior year transactions and records, all at once. With cloud accounting software like FreshBooks, importing data such as timesheets and payroll records is more streamlined, making it easier to manage and track your finances without manually piecing together fragmented data.
- Reduced disruption: Many businesses experience a slower pace in January, giving you and your team more bandwidth to focus on setting up and learning FreshBooks’ features. This time can also be used to prepare for making tax digital and aligning with new goals for the tax year.
That said, not every business follows the same cycle. If January is your busiest season or your team is heavily engaged in closing the previous year’s books, the migration might be more time-intensive. For example, sole proprietors juggling uncashed checks, bills, and end-of-year tax deductions might find it challenging to complete the switch during this period.
Choose a time when your team can dedicate resources to the shift, and ensure that all necessary data—such as estimates, transactions, and payments—are logged and ready for transfer. With FreshBooks’ intuitive apps and support for users, the transition can be efficient, helping you focus on creating value for your customers and clients while managing your finances with less effort.
3 Other Practical Times to Change Your Accounting System
If the start of the new year is not going to fly, here’s a breakdown of other times to consider switching your solution, along with the pros and cons of each.
1. At the Start of Q4
Switching to FreshBooks at the beginning of Q4 can be a smart move, especially as it coincides with both the start of a new quarter and preparations for year-end financial reporting. This period allows businesses to refine their accounting processes while planning for the upcoming year.
Pro: Time to Refine and Test Integrations
Q4 offers a valuable opportunity to set up and optimize FreshBooks alongside the tools your business already uses—whether you use apps for tracking invoices, logging customer payments, or managing payroll (FreshBooks does all that too by the way 😉). The additional months provide the chance to ensure data migration processes, like importing records and matching transactions, work seamlessly before the new year begins.
FreshBooks’ cloud accounting features also simplify integrations with other platforms. By syncing your existing tools, you can manage and track data, automate repetitive tasks, and respond to business needs faster, saving both time and money in the long run (and short run).
Con: Potential Holiday Strain
For e-commerce and retail businesses, Q4 often brings peak activity due to Black Friday, holiday sales, and year-end service demands. If your team is already stretched thin managing invoices, payments, and customer support, the migration could become overwhelming. Mistakes, like incomplete data imports or mismatched charts of accounts, may arise during this busy period.
To minimize risks, ensure you have clear instructions for the migration and consider engaging bookkeepers or accountants to assist with the details of the transfer process during this hectic time.
2. Before Tax Season
Switching to FreshBooks in the lead-up to tax season can be a strategic choice for businesses looking to streamline their financial processes. While this period comes with its own challenges, the benefits of starting fresh with a new cloud accounting system often outweigh the drawbacks.
Pro: Streamlined and Organized Financials
Preparing for tax season requires sifting through data, categorizing expenses, and ensuring all financial records are accurate. By transitioning to FreshBooks, you can take advantage of features like automated expense tracking and user-friendly invoice management. These tools make it easier to categorize and track transactions, generate reports, identify deductions, and ensure compliance with new government initiatives and changes to the tax system.
FreshBooks simplifies importing historical data and records, even from arduous tools like QuickBooks Online, allowing you to manage estimates, invoices, and payment logs all in one place. With automation in place, you’ll save time manually entering data, giving your team more capacity to focus on the big picture—setting yourself up for success in the years to come.
Want more tips on organizing your finances ahead of tax season? Check out these lessons learned.
Con: Competing Priorities During Tax Prep
Most businesses are already busy in the weeks before tax deadlines. Adding a full data migration, including importing records, setting up a new chart of accounts, and ensuring seamless integrations with payroll (try FreshBooks Payroll) and other apps, could stretch your resources too thin.
This timing might also increase the risk of errors in the migration, such as unmatched transactions or incomplete records. To mitigate this, ensure your team has clear instructions and enlist assistance from bookkeepers or accountants familiar with cloud accounting platforms like FreshBooks.
3. After Tax Season
On the other hand, waiting until after tax season to make the switch to FreshBooks may help ensure that all your financials are accurate, organized, and ready to be imported into your new account. Remember, you just spent hours upon hours making sure your finances stand up to the scrutiny of the IRS.
So if you’ve just spent months in the weeds organizing everything from your expenses and invoices to your tax forms, spending a little extra time now to make the data more accessible could work wonders to improve your accounting process.
Pro: You’re Well Aware of the State of Your Financials
Once tax season ends, your financial data has already been reviewed and finalized, making it the perfect time to migrate to a new accounting platform like FreshBooks—to take stock of your business’ financial health.
This timing ensures that all data—including invoices, payments, and other records—can be imported cleanly and accurately. Migrating your data to FreshBooks is designed to be easy as pie.
These accounting features allow you to engage with your business more meaningfully, opening the door for more productive discussions with your business partners, stakeholders, advisors, and clients.
For business writer Ana Gotter, switching up her process early on allowed her to get her taxes done sooner—to the delight of her accountant. It also allowed her to consider the tax implications of her actions year-round by constantly monitoring her reports and dashboards. For Ana, the risk of saving all the heavy lifting for tax season wasn’t worth the potential penalties from the IRS.
“It’s just not something that you want to deal with,” she says, emphasizing the importance of an accounting system to track your income and expenses. “Tracking shouldn’t be left until tax season. I did it once. It was awful, and I hated it.”
Con: Temporary Costs and Dual Systems
Switching accounting platforms anytime after tax season may require running both systems simultaneously while you complete the data migration. This means you’ll need to pay for both your previous software, such as QuickBooks Online, and your new FreshBooks account until the transfer is finalized.
To avoid issues, work closely with bookkeepers or accountants to verify that all records have been successfully created, imported and matched. Taking the time to carefully review the process will prevent costly errors and ensure a smooth transition to your new accounting system.
Need Help With the Transition?
No Perfect Time? No Problem: FreshBooks Has You Covered
If none of the suggested times for switching accounting systems align with your schedule, don’t worry—you have flexibility. Take a moment to review your calendar and identify slower periods when you can allocate the time and resources needed for the transition.
If you’re overwhelmed, help is just a few clicks or a phone call away. FreshBooks offers an award-winning support team ready to assist you with everything from data migration to understanding the platform’s many features.
For tailored guidance, opt for Easy Switch data migration services. Let FreshBooks specialists transfer your records, invoices, and payments. Plus, get customized onboarding sessions with a dedicated team member to walk you through the setup process.
Once the migration is complete, you’ll be ready to unlock the full potential of FreshBooks and its robust features, from tracking payments and generating estimates to managing bills and responding to clients. The result? A streamlined system that saves you time, adds value to your business, and sets you up for success in the years to come.
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This post was updated in December 2024.