What is the switch date?

A switch has one moment when everything flips. Until that day you book in the old package, from the next day in the new one. The choice of that day decides how much work the switch is and how clear your figures are afterwards.

The simplest is 1 January. The old financial year is then closed, the opening balance follows from a final position and you start the new year with one system. Almost as good is the start of a quarter, because you also have a clear closing, for example for the VAT return.

Switching mid-year is possible but takes more. The current financial year then has to come along in detail, through the audit file, so that your annual figures do not have to be merged from two systems. That is quite doable, but it is more checking than a switch at a quarter boundary.

Think also about what happens around that day. Open orders keep running: a sales order created yesterday has to be in the new system today. That is why we take all open orders on the switch date, with the old order numbers kept as a reference. Preferably do not plan the switch on a busy delivery day.

Around the switch date you also plan the go-live: the moment your team actually works in the new system. The two often coincide, but not always. You can transfer the data on the switch date and let the team get used to it in the days after.

Choose the date deliberately and hold on to it. Every shift means exporting again and checking again. If you doubt the day, discuss it in the introduction and we fix it together with the scope.