MYOB to Xero Migration: The Steps and Where It Gets Complicated

The short answer

A MYOB to Xero migration follows the same path every time: choose the conversion date, tidy the MYOB file, map the chart of accounts and the tax codes, decide how much history to bring, move the balances and open items, then check Xero against MYOB before you switch. The move itself is the quick part. The time goes into the decisions and the checking.

Most migrations go smoothly. The ones that do not usually fail in the same few places: a chart of accounts mapped in a hurry, tax codes that do not land on the right BAS labels, Wine Equalisation Tax that Xero does not calculate, payroll moved mid-year, or several MYOB files that were never on the same list of accounts. This guide walks through each of them so you know where to look.

Five decisions to make before anything moves

1. The conversion date. The start of the financial year is cleanest. The start of a BAS quarter is the next best, because each activity statement then comes from one system.
2. How much history. Opening balances only, balances plus open invoices and bills, or several years of transactions. Every year you bring has to reconcile in Xero.
3. One Xero organisation or several. Xero works on one organisation per legal entity. If you run a company and a trust in MYOB, they stay separate in Xero.
4. The chart of accounts you want in Xero. Copy MYOB's list as it is, or use the move to tidy it. Decide before mapping starts, not halfway through.
5. Payroll now or at 1 July. Moving payroll mid-year is possible, but it is the riskiest part of the move. If you can wait for the new financial year, it is simpler.

The migration steps, in order

Here is the order a MYOB to Xero migration has to follow. Skipping ahead, for example setting up bank feeds before the accounts are mapped, creates rework later.

1. Review the MYOB file. Which MYOB product and version, how many company files, which features are in use (jobs, categories, inventory, foreign currency, payroll), and which tax codes exist.
2. Tidy MYOB up to the conversion date. Reconcile every bank and credit card account. Clear out invoices and bills that are not really owed. Make inactive the customers, suppliers and accounts nobody uses.
3. Design the Xero chart of accounts and map MYOB to it. Every MYOB account needs a home in Xero, and every system account in MYOB needs to match the right system account in Xero.
4. Map the tax codes. Each MYOB tax code to a Xero tax rate that reports to the same BAS labels. Special codes such as WET need their own plan.
5. Set up Xero. Organisation details, financial year, GST basis (cash or accrual, the same as MYOB), BAS frequency, tracking categories, and users.
6. Bring across the data. Customers, suppliers and items, then the opening balances, the open invoices and bills, and any history you chose to keep.
7. Check Xero against MYOB. The trial balance at the conversion date, the aged receivables and payables, the bank balances, and a GST report for the same period should all agree. If they do not, find out why before going further.
8. Connect the rest. Bank feeds, payroll, and the apps that used to talk to MYOB: point of sale, ecommerce, job management, expense tools.
9. Switch, then close the first month in Xero. Lock MYOB as at the conversion date and keep it, read only, for the records. Treat the first month end and the first BAS in Xero as part of the migration, not as business as usual.

Where it gets complicated: chart of accounts mapping

The chart of accounts is the backbone of the move. Every balance, every transaction and every report depends on it, and MYOB and Xero organise it differently.

• MYOB has header accounts. Xero does not. MYOB groups detail accounts under headers such as 1-0000 Assets. Xero groups accounts by account type instead, so the headers disappear and reports are grouped differently. If your management reports depend on those headers, they need rebuilding.
• Linked accounts become system accounts. In MYOB you choose which accounts are used for trade debtors, trade creditors, GST and retained earnings. Xero has fixed system accounts for these. MYOB's choices have to land on Xero's system accounts exactly, or opening balances will not agree.
• Account types have to match what the account does. An account typed wrongly in Xero still holds the right number, but it shows up in the wrong place on the profit and loss or the balance sheet, and in the wrong part of the BAS worksheets.
• Bank and credit card accounts must be bank accounts in Xero. Otherwise there is no bank feed and nothing to reconcile against.
• Many accounts into fewer. A MYOB file that has grown for fifteen years often has hundreds of accounts, many unused. Merging them is worth doing, but every merge has to be decided once and applied to the balances and the history the same way.

Here is what getting it wrong looks like. A business maps two MYOB income accounts into one Xero account to tidy things up, but only applies the change to the opening balances, not the history. Xero's comparative reports for last year now show half the income in an account that no longer exists. Nobody notices until the accountant asks why sales dropped.

Where it gets complicated: tax codes, including WET

Tax codes are the part of a migration most likely to be wrong without anybody seeing it. A wrongly mapped code raises no error. The invoices look fine. The BAS is simply wrong, every quarter, until somebody checks.

Standard codes. MYOB's standard codes, such as GST, FRE, INP and N-T, all have Xero equivalents, but they are named differently, and each one has to report to the same BAS labels it did in MYOB. Check that capital purchases still land in G10, input-taxed sales still sit outside GST, and GST-free exports still go to G2.

Custom tax codes. Many MYOB files carry codes somebody created years ago: a code for imported goods under deferred GST, a code for a private-use split, a code for a supplier that was wrongly set up. Each needs a decision: map it to a standard Xero rate, create a matching rate in Xero, or retire it.

Wine Equalisation Tax. This is the one that catches wineries, cellar doors and wine wholesalers. MYOB AccountRight ships with WET tax codes: WET itself, WEG for the GST on WET, and a combined GW code that does both on one invoice line. The figures flow to the WET labels on the activity statement. Xero has no WET calculation. After the move, WET has to be recorded another way, usually as its own line on the invoice posted to a WET liability account, or through a winery or inventory app connected to Xero. The WET payable and WET refundable labels (1C and 1D) then have to be checked each period. The WET balance owing at the conversion date also has to come across into the right liability account, not into GST.

Other industry taxes. The same applies, in smaller ways, to luxury car tax for car dealers (labels 1E and 1F) and fuel tax credits (7D). If your MYOB file uses any of these, plan how Xero will handle them before you set a date.

Where it gets complicated: several MYOB files into Xero

Many businesses do not have one MYOB file. They have several, for good reasons that made sense at the time.

• One file per entity. A trading company, a property trust and a family partnership, each in its own file. These become separate Xero organisations, because each has its own ABN and its own BAS. Loans between them must still agree on both sides after the move.
• One file per year. Some businesses started a new MYOB file every few years when the old one grew slow. These belong to the same entity, so they can become one Xero organisation, but the account lists, customers and suppliers usually drifted apart over the years and have to be brought onto one list first.
• One file per branch or division. Two branches of the same company, each kept in its own MYOB file. These can be merged into one Xero organisation, with a tracking category for the branch so each one can still be reported on its own.

Merging files is where the chart of accounts work multiplies. Each file has its own account numbers, its own tax codes and its own customer list, and the same customer often appears under three slightly different names. Every one of those has to be matched once and applied the same way to every file.

If you run several entities, also plan how you will report across them. Xero reports on one organisation at a time, so group or consolidated reporting needs a separate reporting tool or a reporting dashboard.

Other places a MYOB to Xero move goes wrong

• Categories and jobs. MYOB lets you track by category and by job. Xero gives you two active tracking categories, each with up to 100 options. A business with three hundred jobs needs a different approach, such as Xero Projects or a job management app, not a tracking category. Xero Projects is only included in the Ultimate plans in Australia, so check the plan before relying on it.
• Payroll mid-year. Year to date earnings, tax, super and leave balances all have to carry across exactly, and the change has to be reported through Single Touch Payroll so employees do not see two income statements for one year.
• Inventory. Xero's built-in inventory is simple. A business with stock in several locations, assemblies or batch tracking usually needs an inventory app alongside Xero, and the stock values and average costs have to agree with the balance sheet at the conversion date.
• Foreign currency. Open foreign currency invoices and bank accounts have to come across at the right exchange rates, and you need a Xero plan that includes multiple currencies, which in Australia means Comprehensive or Ultimate.
• Unreconciled bank items. Anything left unreconciled in MYOB at the conversion date has to be either cleared first or brought across as a known list, or the first Xero bank reconciliation will not balance.
• Documents and reports. Attached documents, custom invoice layouts and saved reports do not come across. Keep the MYOB file for the records and rebuild the invoice templates you actually use.
• Connected apps. Every app that sent data into MYOB, such as point of sale, ecommerce or job management, needs reconnecting to Xero, ideally at the conversion date so nothing is posted twice or missed.

What an automated conversion covers, and what it does not

Xero subsidises a basic automated conversion from MYOB through a conversion partner, and for a simple file it can be all you need. It moves the chart of accounts, contacts, balances and a period of history as they are.

What an automated conversion cannot do is make the decisions in this guide. It copies the accounts you have rather than the ones you want, it maps tax codes by name rather than by what they report, it does not know what to do with WET, and it converts one file at a time. If your file is tidy, has one entity, no payroll mid-year and only standard tax codes, try it. If not, plan the decisions first, then decide who does the move.

If any of these apply, our MYOB to Xero migration service covers the planning and the move at a fixed price, quoted before work starts. We work with businesses across Australia, from Perth to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Questions about moving from MYOB to Xero