Financial system migrations in Canada
Move your financial system without losing your history, your sales tax trail or your reporting.
We move Canadian organizations into, out of and across accounting and ERP platforms. Transaction level, not summary balances. Reconciled against your source before anyone is asked to use the new system. Client data processed in Canada, and an honest recommendation to stay put when that is the right answer.
15,000+ migrations completed. 90+ source platforms. 25+ years of accounting data engineering.
Direction of travel
Six migrations, not one
Most providers only move data into the one platform they sell. That is a sales model, not a methodology. These are the six shapes a financial system migration actually takes, and we run all of them.
| Scenario | Why Canadian organizations do it |
|---|---|
| ERP to QuickBooks | The ERP was oversold, most modules sit unused, and the annual licence no longer matches what finance actually needs |
| QuickBooks to ERP | Growth has outrun the file. Deeper controls, real approval workflow, or consolidated reporting across entities |
| ERP to ERP | The current platform is end of life, over engineered for the business, or was inherited in an acquisition |
| Multi-entity consolidation | Several company files, divisions or provinces that need one set of books and one reporting structure |
| Mergers, acquisitions and divestitures | Financial data has to be split or combined so the right records end up with the right entity |
| Legacy system retirement | An unsupported platform where continued use is now an operational and compliance risk, not just an inconvenience |
Source platforms
Systems we move Canadian organizations off
Ninety plus source platforms, and the list below is the part of it we see most often in Canada. Where a platform has a dedicated page, the link goes to the full detail. Where it does not, the migration is no less structured, it is simply less common and gets scoped on the call.
| Platform | What it is, and what usually matters in the migration |
|---|---|
| NetSuite | Cloud ERP. The work is saved searches, custom records and the renewal date. Most exits are triggered by a renewal quote rather than a failure |
| Sage Intacct | Cloud financials. The dimension model is the whole project. Get the mapping wrong and every report you rely on stops reconciling |
| Microsoft Dynamics GP, formerly Great Plains | Microsoft has published the end dates. Product enhancements, regulatory updates and support all stop on 31 December 2029, which is the real deadline for anyone running GP Canadian Payroll |
| Sage 50 Canadian Edition and Simply Accounting | Same product line, renamed from the 2013 release. Projects, multicurrency and payroll are the three things a generic conversion drops |
| QuickBooks Desktop Pro and Premier | Intuit stopped Canadian sale on 15 April 2025, and each annual version loses payroll and bank feeds at its discontinuation date. A forced move on a schedule |
| QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise | Still sold in Canada, so this is a choice migration. Inventory costing is the one irreversible decision in the project |
| Sage 300 and Sage Accpac | Accpac renamed to Sage 300. Long histories, multi-currency and heavy customization are normal. Usually a consolidation project as much as a migration |
| Sage 100, MAS 90 and MAS 200 | Payroll was never Canadian and multicurrency is a third party enhancement, so two of your key data sets sit outside standard Sage tables. Up to ten GL segments to re-express |
| Sage 100, formerly MAS 90 and MAS 200 | The module structure and custom reports carry the value. Sage 500, formerly MAS 500, sits alongside it in the same family |
| Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Navision | Same lineage, now succeeded by Business Central. Dimensions and posting groups drive the destination design |
| Microsoft Dynamics AX and Dynamics 365 | Large deployments where the reporting model is usually more complex than the transaction volume justifies |
| Peachtree | Now Sage 50 US Edition. Worth naming clearly, because it is a different product from Sage 50 Canadian Edition and the Canadian tax handling does not carry across |
| Sage Timberline, now Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate | Construction job costing at depth. The destination question matters more here than on any other platform |
| Sage Master Builder, now Sage 100 Contractor | Construction accounting. Job cost history and change order records are the two things that must survive |
| Sage BusinessWorks and Sage DacEasy | Older Sage lines still running in Canadian businesses, often on hardware nobody wants to touch |
| SAP and SAP Business One | Right-sizing projects, usually where the deployment was scaled for a business that no longer exists in that shape |
| Oracle and Oracle NetSuite | Cost and complexity are the usual drivers rather than any product failure |
| Epicor | Manufacturing and distribution. Inventory structure and bills of material define the scope |
| Acumatica | Cloud ERP. Usually a fit question rather than a technical one |
| Certinia, formerly FinancialForce | Salesforce-native financials. Renamed in 2023. The Salesforce object model has to be mapped, not exported |
| Exact Macola | Manufacturing ERP with long histories and older data structures |
| Cougar Mountain and Maxwell Systems | Niche and construction platforms where documentation is thin and the extraction work is the project |
| Foundation Software | Construction accounting and payroll. Job costing continuity is the whole conversation |
| MYOB | Still found in Canadian businesses with Australian or New Zealand origins |
| Xero and Zoho Books | Cloud to cloud. Straightforward on paper, and the tax code mapping is where it goes wrong |
| Microsoft Access, Excel and homegrown systems | Spreadsheet and database ledgers. The work is inferring an accounting model that was never formally designed, then proving it balances |
If your platform is not listed, it is very likely still in the ninety plus. Bring the file to the call.
Method
What transaction level actually means
Every provider says transaction level. Here is the version you can hold us to.
Every record, not every balance
Invoices, bills, payments, credit memos, deposits, journal entries and adjustments arrive as individual transactions with their original dates, references and line detail. Not opening balances with a suspense account holding the difference.
That is what makes year over year comparison work the week after go live, and what makes a filed return reproducible three years later when somebody asks.
Reconciled before you use it
Trial balance, balance sheet, profit and loss, AR ageing, AP ageing, sales tax summary and inventory valuation are pulled from both systems and compared line by line during a test migration. You receive the comparison, not a summary of it, and you sign off before cutover.
Exclusions agreed in writing first
Every migration leaves something behind. The difference between a good project and a bad one is whether that list was written down and agreed before the work started, or discovered by your bookkeeper in week three. Ours is in the scope document you sign.
Exclusions
What does not move, and what we do instead
These are the items that do not carry across in almost any platform-to-platform conversion. None of them are a reason to abandon a migration. All of them are a reason to insist the list is written down before the work starts.
Audit trail and user history
The source system audit trail does not convert. The destination starts a fresh log from day one. We export and archive the original trail so the record still exists, it simply lives in the archive rather than inside the new file.
Reconciliation reports
Reconciled transactions carry their reconciled status across, but the historical reconciliation reports themselves do not. We archive them as PDFs so a bank reconciliation from four years ago is still producible on request.
Saved and memorized reports
Custom reports do not convert on any platform. We inventory them before cutover, rebuild the ones people actually use, and archive the rest. On most files the majority have not been opened in years, and not rebuilding them is a real part of the saving.
Form templates and layouts
Invoice, statement and purchase order templates are rebuilt in the destination form styles so what your customers receive on day one looks like what they received the week before.
Attachments and documents
Files attached to records rarely convert. We extract them into a structured archive keyed to the original records and re-attach the ones that matter on request.
Bank feeds, rules and integrations
Bank connections and rules are rebuilt rather than moved. Connected applications are re-authorised where a connector exists and replaced where one does not, and that replacement is scoped and costed inside the same project rather than raised afterwards.
Canada
The details a US migration plan gets wrong
The mechanics of a conversion are the same on both sides of the border. The compliance envelope is not.
Sales tax is nine different answers
HST at 13 percent in Ontario. 14 percent in Nova Scotia. 15 percent in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. GST plus PST in British Columbia at 7 percent, Saskatchewan at 6 percent and Manitoba at 7 percent. GST plus QST in Quebec at 9.975 percent. GST only in Alberta, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Historical transactions have to keep the code they were filed under, attached to the right agency. A conversion that collapses provincial codes into one generic tax item leaves you unable to reproduce a filed return.
Input tax credits have to be reproducible
Your GST and HST input tax credits are only as defensible as the transaction detail behind them. Move summary balances and you can still file, but you cannot substantiate. We reconcile a sales tax summary from both systems before go live so the position is visible rather than assumed.
Six years, at a Canadian place of business
The CRA requires records to be kept for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, and to be kept at your place of business in Canada unless you have written permission to keep them elsewhere. Your retired system becomes a structured, readable archive built to meet that and handed to you.
Your data is processed in Canada
Extraction, staging, transformation and validation all happen in Canada. We do not move a Canadian client file offshore to be worked on. If your board, your auditor or your privacy policy carries a data residency clause, that is the answer to it and it goes in the statement of work.
Payroll, stated honestly
We migrate basic payroll data. Detailed pay type history and year to date figures are archived from the source rather than rebuilt in the destination. A partially populated payroll history inside a live file causes more problems than it solves.
Quebec is its own conversation
QST is administered separately from GST, which means separate tax accounts in most source systems and a different consolidation on the way out. If you file in Quebec, say so on the first call so it is scoped rather than discovered.
Process
How a migration runs
Assessment
We profile the source file: volumes, list counts, currencies, dimensions, tax setup, connected applications and the reports that actually leave the building. The output is a written scope with the exclusions named.
Destination design
Chart of accounts, classes and locations, tax codes and agencies, custom fields, user roles. Designed against your reporting rather than accepting whatever a conversion tool produces.
Extraction and cleansing
Data is extracted, audited and prepared. Cleanup decisions happen inside the migration where they can be reconciled, not beforehand in a spreadsheet nobody can audit.
Test migration
A full conversion into a sandbox, reconciled line by line against the source across every statement and ageing. You review and sign off.
Application reconnection
Bank feeds, bank rules and connected applications re-authorised or replaced. Runs alongside the test cycle so nothing waits for cutover.
Cutover
Final delta migration in a quiet window. Your team keeps working in the old system until we switch. Reconciliation repeats against the final numbers.
Hypercare
Thirty days of support after go live. Role training, report tuning, and your first month end run with us on the line.
Archive
The source system is archived in a structured, readable form and delivered to you, built to satisfy the six year retention requirement.
Timeline
How long it takes
By the profile of the file rather than the size of your team. The assessment gives you a fixed window and a fixed scope before you commit to anything.
| Profile | Timeline |
|---|---|
| Single company file, one currency, standard or no inventory | Under 1 week |
| Multicurrency, active inventory or projects, several years of history, connected applications | 1 to 3 weeks |
| ERP source, multi-entity consolidation, custom application rebuild or heavy inventory redesign | 2 to 8 weeks |
Those windows run from kickoff to go live and include the test migration and the reconciliation cycle. They do not include the thirty days of hypercare that follow every project. Software subscriptions are paid to the vendor directly and are never marked up by us.
Complexity
Where the difficulty actually lives
Transaction volume is rarely the hard part. These are the operating models where a migration needs real design work rather than a data export, and they are most of what we do.
Construction and contracting
Job costing by phase and cost code, change orders, progress billing, holdback and work in progress. The job cost history is the reporting model, and a conversion that drops it takes the business with it.
Manufacturing and distribution
Bills of material, assemblies, landed cost, serial and lot tracking, and inventory costing method. The costing decision is usually irreversible in the destination, which makes sequencing more important than speed.
Not-for-profit and associations
Fund accounting, restricted and unrestricted balances, grant tracking and donor reporting. Canadian reporting obligations differ from the US templates most conversion tooling assumes.
Multi-entity groups and co-operatives
Intercompany balances, consolidation, and provinces with different tax regimes inside one group. This is where classes, locations and a deliberate chart design earn their keep.
Professional services
Time capture, project profitability, billing rates, retainers and revenue recognition. Project history is the thing clients most often assume will carry across and most often does not.
Retail and eCommerce
Point of sale, channel integrations, high transaction counts and inventory that moves faster than the close. Cutover timing matters more here than anywhere else.
Healthcare and professional practices
Multi-location structures, privacy obligations and reporting that has to hold up to external review.
Agriculture and food
Seasonal cycles, co-operative structures, lot traceability where food safety rules apply, and a close that has to work around production rather than the calendar.
Proof
A national organization, moved without a reporting gap
Dairy Farmers of Canada
A national organization with the reporting obligations that come with representing an entire sector moved off Sage 300 onto QuickBooks. Full transaction history. Reporting continuity across periods so year over year comparisons still worked the week after go live.
Their financial controller put the real risk plainly: the problem was data corruption in the Sage 300 system, and the answer was a production file that kept the business running while the data issues were resolved. That is what a migration partner is actually for.
Questions Canadian finance teams ask
Before you book
Can I bring all of my historical transactions?
In most cases yes. The practical question is whether you want to. Full history is more work and a longer timeline. Many teams bring two to three years live and keep the rest as a structured archive, which also satisfies the six year retention requirement.
Will my GST, HST, PST and QST history survive?
Yes, when the conversion runs at transaction level. Every historical transaction keeps the code it was filed under and the codes are rebuilt against the correct agencies. We reconcile a sales tax summary from both systems before go live.
Can you move us out of QuickBooks into an ERP?
Yes. We are platform agnostic on direction. Roughly as many of our projects move up into an ERP as move down out of one, and we will tell you which one your reporting actually needs.
We are on a legacy or industry-specific system. Can you still migrate us?
Usually. Older and niche platforms are a large share of what we do. Thin documentation and awkward data structures change the extraction sequence and the timeline, not whether the project is possible.
Do you support multi-entity consolidation?
Yes. Several company files, divisions or provinces brought into one reporting structure is one of the most common projects we run for Canadian groups, and it is as much a design exercise as a data one.
Where is my data processed?
In Canada. Extraction, staging, transformation and validation all happen in Canada, and we state it in the statement of work.
What happens to our old system?
It is archived in a structured, readable form and handed to you, built to meet the CRA requirement to keep records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, at a place of business in Canada unless you have written permission otherwise.
Will you tell us not to migrate?
Regularly. If the capability you would lose costs more than the platform you are leaving, staying is the right answer and you will hear it on the first call rather than in month three of a project.
Accounting firm with a client on this platform?
Refer, white-label, or co-deliver the migration with our team while you keep the client relationship.
Playbooks
Before you decide, read the mechanics
Short, checkable pieces on the contract clauses and system limits that usually decide this. Each one names a document or a report you already own.
The uplift clause costs more than the discount you win
A 6 percent discount erased by a 7 percent annual escalator. All three years priced out, and the four documents to pull before you respond to a renewal.
When a QuickBooks Desktop file gets too big
The published list limits, five signs a file is ageing badly, and what Condense Data actually fixes.
Discovery Call
Book a migration assessment
Ninety minutes on your source system, your reporting and your tax position. A fixed-scope quote after, or an honest recommendation to stay where you are.
