Switching to a new programme mid-year Move when it suits you,
not only on 1 January.
Every accountant knows why a change of programme waits for January: what the old programme has already posted must not be posted again, payments must clear invoices that stayed in the old programme, and a VAT period must not be split. duplo solves this with one piece of data — the opening-balance date — and rules that apply across the whole programme.
The books up to the cut-off stay in the old programme · from the next day duplo posts
01 / Why everyone waits for January
The risk is not in the programme but in the switch
Four things an accountant sees coming when a company wants to change programmes in the middle of the year.
Double posting
An invoice the old programme has already posted must not get an entry in the new one as well. The moment the new programme pulls history from SEF without rules, the same cost and the same VAT exist twice.
Open items
A payment in November for an invoice from June: if the invoice stayed in the old programme, there is nothing in the new one to clear it against, and the partner ledger shows an overpayment.
A split VAT period
Half a month in one programme, half in the other — the return is assembled by hand from two sources, and every difference is chased in two places.
Two programmes side by side
Until the balances agree, the accountant keeps both. Hence the answer “only from 1 January” — not because the programme cannot, but because nobody wants the risk.
02 / How it works
One date, and the programme takes care of the rest
Posting, ledgers and the opening balance are part of the Računovodstvo (Accounting) add-on and are included in the Biro plan. The company works as before — issues invoices, receives e-invoices, imports bank statements — and the programme keeps the cut-off in mind.
- 01
An opening-balance date
One piece of data: the day up to which the books were kept in the old programme. A VAT-registered company chooses a month end, so no period is split. From the next day duplo posts; everything dated earlier is carried by the opening balance.
- 02
Ledgers from the old programme
Partner ledgers — customers, suppliers, advances, including those in euros — are imported with a review before anything is written. Every item is matched by document number against what already exists in duplo, so nothing is doubled.
- 03
Older invoices from SEF
Fetch any period going back. Invoices up to the cut-off arrive as documents for the archive and for importing line items into the item list, without entries; invoices after the cut-off are posted as usual.
- 04
Payments clear old invoices
An old invoice is linked to its opening-balance item, so the list says whether it is open or paid. When a payment arrives, it is matched on the bank statement with that item: the invoice gets a “Paid” marker, and the partner ledger is right from day one.
- 05
Live books from day one
Partner ledgers, IOS statements of open items, the trial balance and the general ledger work from the cut-off day, and the accountant reviews every new entry in one place — with the last word on all of them.
03 / The accountant’s part
What stays with the accountant
- The opening balance of the other accounts — bank, inventory, fixed assets, equity, costs and revenue up to the cut-off — from the old programme’s trial balance, as one opening-balance entry.
- The inventory count of stock and fixed assets, as every year.
- Year-end processing: exchange differences, the closing entries and the opening of the new year are done in duplo, so a year split between two programmes is closed in one.
- Reviewing the automatic entries: confirming, correcting with a trace or changing an account for the future — at the accountant’s own pace.
What duplo does not do by itself
It does not carry over the opening balance of the other accounts from another programme, it does not fetch the company’s issued invoices from SEF (only received ones), and it does not find an opening-balance item whose number does not resemble the SEF number by itself — then you link it by hand on the invoice page.
04 / Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Which day should we choose as the cut-off?
- The last day of a month, and the last day of a quarter if you file VAT quarterly — so no VAT period is split between two programmes. A company outside the VAT system can choose any day, but a month end is easier to check. 1 January is not a requirement, just one of the dates.
- What happens to invoices we already paid in the old programme?
- They are fetched from SEF as documents: you can see them, import their lines into the item list and keep them in the archive — but no journal entry is made. Their marker comes from the opening balance: an invoice that was open on the accountant’s ledger reads “Open (opening balance)” until the payment arrives, and one that is not on the ledger reads “Paid before the cut-off”.
- We have been using duplo for a few months while the books stayed with our accountant. Can we set the cut-off now?
- Yes. Entries that duplo created before the ledgers were imported stay in the books; the import recognises them by document number and does not duplicate them. The accountant then enters the opening balance of the other accounts 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.
- Does our accountant have to change programmes?
- No. The accountant works in duplo as a member of the company’s team, free of charge, and keeps all clients under one login. An agency that keeps the books of clients without their own programme uses the Biro plan.
- In what form do the ledgers from the old programme arrive?
- As an XML file for import, which you review line by line before anything is written. Ledgers that the old programme exports as PDF we prepare for import ourselves — send us a sample of one partner ledger.
When no cut-off is needed
A company that has been in duplo since it was founded does not set a date — everything is posted from the first document. The cut-off is for companies bringing their books over from another programme.
See the switch on your own ledgers
Half an hour, no obligations: bring the partner ledgers from your programme and we will show the import, the cut-off and the first trial balance on your data.