Mid-Year Migration - Importing Data
If you are part way through your financial year and don't want to wait until the start of your new financial year to begin using ExpensePlus, we have created an efficient way to import and match your bank transactions retrospectively yourself, or you can choose to use our Data Import Service.
Getting Setup
Follow these 5 simple setup steps.
Importing Data
If you are less than 3 to 4 months into your financial year, you shouldn't find it too difficult to import data yourself. Watch this short video to explore the most efficient process for a mid-year migration.
There are two key steps to importing data:
- Uploading Bank Transactions
You can choose to either upload transactions from your bank statements or connect to open banking and get transactions imported through the automatic bank feed. The automated bank feed usually imports transactions in the last 360 days.
Learn about uploading bank statement files here.
Learn about connecting to open banking here.
- Reconciling Transactions
Don't try to enter transactions via the usual process flow shown on the dashboard screen. Instead, you can quickly and easily bank match bank transactions from within the bank matching screen.
Once you have uploaded bank transactions or these have been imported via the automatic feed, on the 'match transactions' screen, click on the first bank transaction. In the popup that appears, use the top dropdown menu to select the details for the transaction as appropriate.
Income transactions
Retrospective bank matching of income is usually pretty straightforward. For example, with a Named Donation, once you have told ExpensePlus once who a donation transaction is from and which fund/category it should be allocated against, ExpensePlus remembers this for future quick matching.
Expenditure transactions
Retrospective bank matching of expenditure can be more time-intensive, due to the likely variety of transactions but the process is much the same. Select the transactions in date order, enter the description and Payee/Supplier details and allocate to the correct categories.
Top Tip: We recommend that you match just the first month of the financial year, then use the 'Quick Match' buttons at the top of the screen to automatically reconcile all recurring donations and payments in all other months in just one click! After this, you'll then need to match any remaining income and expenditure transactions, which most organisations find quick to do.
Top tip: If you have business card purchases and multiple card holders, we recommend that you allocate all business card purchases to yourself rather than the individuals they are linked to. This will prevent other cardholders from receiving notification emails the next day to add receipts for their (historic) business card purchases.
Frequently Asked Questions? (FAQs)
What about receipts for the transactions imported?
Reconciling transactions by this method will create a record but without the supporting paperwork attached (no invoice or receipt). Read this separate help guide article which covers the options you have for uploading receipts retrospectively.
Can you import my data for me?
Whilst most churches and charities choose to import data themselves for free, we do also offer a data import service. Click here to find out more.
Can't I just download a file from my old software and import that?
Sadly there isn't such an option, for several reasons. The closest option we do offer is our data import service whereby we run upfront checks on the data you supply, then translate it into a format that we can import with adding additional details needed. Then once imported we verify the data.
Can I import more than just the data for my current financial year?
We typically would not recommend that you do this unless you have no other way of creating accounts for your prior financial year (i.e. no proper records have been kept).