Moving from Sage to Xero with Click Dealer

Why dealers move

Many dealerships started on Sage and added Click Dealer later. Moving the books to Xero puts them online alongside Click Dealer, with bank feeds, easy access for your accountant and VAT returns filed under Making Tax Digital from the same place. The move itself is straightforward if it is planned; most problems come from switching mid-quarter or bringing across balances nobody has checked.

1. Choose the switch date

The cleanest date is the start of your financial year. If that is too far off, choose the start of a VAT quarter, so each VAT return comes entirely from one system. Avoid switching part-way through a quarter – it means building one return from two sets of books.

2. Tidy Sage before you leave

• Reconcile every bank account in Sage up to the switch date.
• Clear old unpaid invoices and bills that are no longer really owed.
• Agree the stock figure in Sage to the Click Dealer stock list at the switch date.
• File the last VAT return from Sage, so the final quarter is closed.

Whatever is wrong in Sage on the day you leave will arrive in Xero with you, so this is the step worth spending time on.

3. Decide what comes across

At a minimum, Xero needs:

• an opening trial balance at the switch date;
• unpaid customer invoices and supplier bills, so they can be matched when paid;
• customer and supplier contacts.

Conversion tools can also bring across past transactions, which is useful if you want comparative figures in Xero. Whether that is worth it depends on how clean the Sage history is.

4. Set up Xero for a dealership

A dealership needs more than the default Xero chart of accounts. We set up separate accounts for margin scheme and standard-rated vehicle sales, vehicle purchases, stock, part-exchanges, finance commission and warranty income – laid out to match the way Click Dealer reports, so the monthly import lands in the right place. We also set up how margin scheme sales and their VAT are posted, so the VAT return boxes come out right.

5. Reconnect Click Dealer

The exports from Click Dealer stay the same; what changes is where they go. We map each Click Dealer report to the new Xero accounts and run the first month's import with you. Because the import is a file import, not re-keying, it counts as a digital link for Making Tax Digital.

6. Move VAT filing to Xero

Connect Xero to HMRC for Making Tax Digital before the first return is due, and stop filing from Sage once its last quarter is submitted. If we file as your agent, we link the new Xero file to our agent account. Only one system should ever file a given return.

7. Check the first month properly

At the end of the first month in Xero, run the full month-end reconciliation: sales, purchases, part-exchanges, stock and bank. Any problem with the opening balances shows up now, while it is easy to fix.

8. Keep your Sage records

You must keep VAT records for six years, so keep Sage, or a full export of it, available after the switch. Don't cancel the licence until you have a copy you can open.

Related: who files your VAT return and margin scheme VAT for car dealers.