Switching to duplo mid-year

When asked “can we move to the new programme now, in the middle of the year?”, accountants usually answer “only from 1 January”. The reason is not the programme but the risk: what was posted in the old programme up to the cut-off must not be posted again in the new one, open invoices must be cleared when payments arrive, and a VAT period must not be split between two programmes. duplo removes that risk with one piece of data and rules that apply to the whole programme.

The opening-balance date (cut-off)

The company has an opening-balance date — the day up to which the books were kept in another programme. From the next day duplo posts. It is set:

• by importing the accountant’s ledgers (opening balance from your old programme’s ledgers) — the file carries the cut-off day and the import writes it to the company if it does not have one yet;
• by entering the partner opening balance by hand — with the tick box “The books up to this date were kept in another programme” (without the tick box a manual entry does not change the date);
• in Company settings → Start of posting in duplo (owner or administrator) and on the Opening balance page (accountant).

Rules for the date: it cannot be in the future; a VAT-registered company chooses the last day of a month or 1 January (a VAT period is not split); a quarterly VAT filer the last day of a quarter. While an opening-balance entry exists, the date can only be its day or empty — a different cut-off means reverting the import and importing again, which is what is true of the books anyway. Every change is written to the team history.

Without a date duplo posts every document, as before. A new company that has been in duplo since it was founded does not set a date.

What is posted after the cut-off and what is not

A document or run dated up to the cut-off is covered by the opening balance: duplo makes no journal entry for it, because its balance is carried by the opening balance the accountant entered. A document dated after the cut-off is posted as before. This applies to received invoices from SEF (date of supply), issued documents (issue date), bank statements (transaction date), payroll runs (month), other personal income (payment date), depreciation, travel orders, stock adjustments and customs debt assessments.

External documents (invoices from SEF, bank statements) up to the cut-off are skipped quietly — they are visible, but without an entry and without a paid status; in the list of received invoices they carry a marker of their state against the opening balance (open, paid, paid before the cut-off — see “Payments for old invoices”), and the invoice page says why. Documents you create in duplo yourself with a date up to the cut-off are refused with a message: issuing an invoice, manual entry of a supplier invoice, a customs debt assessment, marking an invoice as paid in cash with a date before the cut-off, a depreciation run for a month up to the cut-off. Such a document belongs in the opening balance, not in duplo’s books.

Entries that were created in duplo before you entered the opening balance (the company used duplo for a while and only then imported the ledgers) stay in the books, frozen: the ledger import recognises them by document number and does not duplicate them, and editing such a document does not touch its entry. The opening balance of the other accounts (bank, inventory, expenses…) is then entered by the accountant as the difference against duplo’s trial balance on the cut-off day — the import screen shows how many such entries there are and links to the trial balance.

Older invoices from SEF

The “Fetch from SEF” button pulls the last 60 days. The “Older period…” button on the same page fetches any period going back (month by month; invoices already fetched are not duplicated). With the cut-off set this is safe: invoices up to the cut-off arrive as documents for review, for importing line items into the item list and for the archive, without posting; invoices after the cut-off are posted. Without a cut-off the dialog asks you to confirm that the company has kept its books in duplo from the start — otherwise the old invoices would be posted and the opening balance doubled.

You can import the line items of an old invoice into the item list like from any other: the purchase price and the supplier enter the purchase history, and the quantity goes into inventory only if you switch it on (it is off by default, because the quantity may already be in the inventory opening balance from a stocktake).

Payments for old invoices

A payment for an invoice from before the cut-off is matched on the Bank statements page with the opening-balance item with the same number — it is among the candidates, an invoice covered by the opening balance is not. Clearing that item also clears the partner ledger. The programme does not allow such a payment to be matched with the old invoice itself (the entry would get a liability without a counter-item and the ledger would show an overpayment).

An old invoice is linked to its opening-balance item — the programme links them by partner and document number, on the ledger import, on manual entry and when fetching from SEF. By that link the invoice list says: “Open (opening balance)” with the open amount until the payment arrives, “Paid (opening balance)” once the payment clears the item (undoing the match removes the marker), and “Paid before the cut-off” when there is no item and the opening balance of that side has been entered (the supplier ledger for received invoices, the customer ledger for issued ones) — by the opening balance the invoice was not open; until that ledger is imported the invoice carries only “Before the start of posting”. The same applies to issued invoices and customer items. A covered issued invoice is not offered as a candidate on Bank statements — the payment goes to the opening-balance item (which carries its full number) and that item marks it as paid. When the accountant’s ledger carries a number that does not resemble the SEF number, you link the item by hand on the invoice page; the “Link old invoices to the opening balance” button on the Opening balance page links invoices that were already there. On the Bank statements page an item linked to an invoice carries its full number, so the payment is found as usual.

What to check with your accountant

• The For review page has the list “Arrived after the cut-off, supplied before”: invoices with a date of supply up to the cut-off that the supplier sent to SEF after that day. The accountant may not have them in the opening balance — if an invoice is unpaid and not on the ledger, the “Add to opening balance” button enters it.
• Reports for a period that starts before the cut-off (ledgers, trial balance, journal) carry a note that the books up to the cut-off are in the previous programme. The comparative column of the financial statements does not take a mid-year opening balance as the balance at 31 December.
• VAT for a period that ends up to the cut-off was calculated in the previous programme; the VAT page says so and does not offer posting of the VAT calculation for that period.

What the programme does not do by itself

• It does not carry over the opening balance of the other accounts (bank, inventory, fixed assets, equity) — the accountant enters that as a PS entry on the Journal entries page.
• It does not fetch the company’s issued invoices from SEF (only received ones).
• It does not find an opening-balance item whose number does not resemble the SEF number — then you link it by hand on the invoice page.