Quick answer
From Xero, export the Trial Balance, General Ledger Detail (with opening and closing balances), Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet with comparatives, the aged reports as at the year end aged by invoice date, the Depreciation Schedule and Fixed Asset Reconciliation, and each VAT return with its Transactions by VAT Box detail, all as Excel. QuickBooks Online and Sage have their own equivalents below.
When you meet this
When you prepare the year-end pack, before Records intake & agreement. "Read" and "Being proven" are explained in the Year-end export list.
The core reports (these run the job)
Slot | Xero | QuickBooks Online | Sage 50 |
Trial Balance with comparative | Accounting, Reports, Trial Balance, as at the year end, with the comparative column (add the year-before column too). Excel. Read | Reports, Trial Balance, as at the year end, Excel. QuickBooks has no comparative column: drop last year's trial balance in the same slot as a second file. Read | The trial balance exported to Excel or CSV. Read |
General Ledger detail - current + prior year | Accounting, Reports, General Ledger Detail, full year. Under the report settings tick opening and closing balances, then export to Excel. Last year as a second file, or one export spanning both years. Read | Reports, General Ledger, full year, with the Balance column, Excel. Last year as a second file. Read | A nominal transactions listing to Excel (date, nominal code, description, debit, credit). Read. The Nominal Activity report: Being proven |
Profit & Loss report with comparative | Accounting, Reports, Profit and Loss, full year, comparative column, standard layout, Excel. Read | Profit and Loss with comparatives, Excel. Read | Being proven |
Balance Sheet report with comparative | Accounting, Reports, Balance Sheet, as at the year end, comparative column, Excel. Read | Balance Sheet with comparatives, Excel. Read | Being proven |
Xero's Account Transactions report and Journal Report are refused in the general ledger slot: they carry no opening and closing balances per account. Export General Ledger Detail instead. A QuickBooks ledger is converted only when every account's opening plus movement ties to its running balance, so keep the Balance column in.
If a Xero profit and loss on a custom layout cannot be read, the message gives the steps: open Layout, choose the standard (default) layout, and export to Excel again.
The client records from the bookkeeping software
Slot | Xero | QuickBooks Online | Sage 50 |
Aged Receivables Report / Aged Payables Report | Aged Receivables (or Payables) Summary or Detail, as at the year end, ageing by invoice date. Excel, or the PDF print. Read | A/R Ageing Summary or Detail, A/P Ageing Summary or Detail, as at the year end, Excel. Read | Aged Debtors Analysis / Aged Creditors Analysis, summary or detailed, as at the year end. PDF print, Excel or CSV. Read |
Fixed assets - register / depreciation schedule + reconciliation | The full-year Depreciation Schedule, and the Fixed Asset Reconciliation report alongside, both Excel, in the one slot. Read | No register in QuickBooks: upload the client's or your own register in Excel. Read | The register exported to Excel. Being proven |
VAT returns - and the transaction details for each box | Each filed return exported to Excel with its Transactions by VAT Box detail, plus the last return of the prior year. The PDF print also reads. Read | The VAT 100 report and the VAT Detail report for each return, PDF or Excel. Read | Being proven |
Xero VAT Reconciliation report (cash accounting only) | Reports, VAT Reconciliation, as at the year end, Excel. Read | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Aged receivables after the year end (optional) | Aged Receivables Detail, as at today, ageing by invoice date, with no due-date filter. The summary cannot show each invoice's age. Read | Being proven | Being proven |
Post-year-end general ledger (only once an HMRC statement is uploaded) | General Ledger Detail from the day after the year end to today. Read | General Ledger, same dates, Excel. Read | Being proven |
Notes:
Aged by due date. A report aged by due date is accepted. If its total does not agree the trial balance control, the upload asks you to re-export it with Ageing by: invoice date.
The Xero Detail export in Excel reads even though its Total rows come through the export as nil: AllDone takes the balances from the invoice rows and checks them against the printed total where there is one.
VAT in Excel matters. The transaction-level checks need the spreadsheet; from a PDF only the box figures are read.
The Fixed Asset Reconciliation report is not a register. It is read alongside the Depreciation Schedule, never instead of it.
Bank reconciliations are covered in Bank, card, loan and other client records.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting, FreeAgent and other packages
No layout specific to Sage Business Cloud Accounting or FreeAgent is proven yet, so their reports are Being proven. Export the same reports as above to Excel or CSV where the package offers it. A FreeAgent aged PDF is shown on its confirm card for you to check, and the total you confirm ties to the trial balance. Any other package follows the same route: nothing is refused for an unfamiliar layout.
From your own file, not the software
Slot | What to upload | Status |
Prior year signed accounts | Last year's signed accounts, PDF (or Word .docx). A PDF with a text layer reads in seconds; a scanned or signed copy is read by OCR in the background. Accounts from IRIS and other accounts production software read. | Read |
Prior year tax computation + CT600 | The computation and the CT600 with its supplementary pages, PDF. TaxCalc, Taxfiler and IRIS computations, and the HMRC submission receipt, read. | Read |
If something looks wrong
"A report we can't use was sent over": the general ledger slot received Account Transactions or the Journal Report. Export General Ledger Detail and upload it.
A QuickBooks ledger "could not be safely converted": re-export with the Balance column.
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