Step 2: Prepare your Keytime data for migration

You'll need to do some data preparation before you start the migration process. How much preparation depends on how many clients you have and whether you have multiple Keytime products.

Elements manages clients a bit differently from Keytime.

In Keytime, you need a client record for the same entity for each product you own. In Elements, there is a single client record per entity - no matter how many products you subscribe to.

For example, you have a client called Business Industries Ltd. You do corporation tax returns and accounts for them in Keytime. This means you'll have a record for Business Industries Ltd in Keytime Corporation Tax, and a record for Business Industries Ltd in Keytime Accounts Production. These records only sync up if they are linked via Practice Manager, otherwise you need to update them separately when making changes to client information.

In Elements, you will only need one client record for Business Industries Ltd. You'll be subscribed to Elements Tax Professional and Accounts Production Professional, but work from the same single client record for this client. If you later decide to subscribe to Elements AML, you will also do your AML work from this single client record. This is part of what makes Elements special.

When data is migrated into Elements from multiple Keytime products, it avoids creating new client records for each data type by scanning existing client record details and using certain data points to figure out if the record already exists in Elements. The data points used to make a match will depend on what type of client they are, e.g. a sole trade will have different matching criteria than a trust.

The most important thing is you'll need to make sure that client records are consistent. They also need to contain specific data points to be migrated, as listed below.

These data points must be consistent in all areas. Deduplication does not employ non-approximate matching (‘fuzzy matching’), meaning that a name or first line of the address, for example, must match exactly in order to resolve the duplicate.

It is strongly advised that before data is migrated, you set time aside to review client records and ensure that data contained in the fields noted below is consistent between all client records. Mismatches will result in a duplicate client record being created in Elements

Duplicate client records

Your Keytime clients are managed by Practice Manager. You may have client data that is included in your Keytime Tax products and also in your Keytime Accounts Production. All the modules of IRIS Elements use a single client record; this ensures that client data is consistent across all areas, and there is no re-keying of data.

During data migration, the aim is to merge multiple instances of the same client into a single record within IRIS Elements. The data migration solution has built in client de-duplication capabilities, which come into effect at certain points.

Duplicate client records are automatically resolved by the platform but your data needs to be in the right state in order for IRIS Elements to recognise any duplication.

Prepare your data

Before you migrate your data, go through your client records in each of your Keytime products and make sure each client type contains the following information:

Client reference or code

If you use client references or codes, please ensure that these are unique for each client. If you do not use them, or only use them for some clients, you do not need to add them before migrating as Elements will give each client a unique identifier during migration.

Incorporated entities (limited companies, LLPs, incorporated charities)

  • Company registration number

Unincorporated charities

  • Charity registration number

Sole trades and partnerships

  • Business name

  • VAT number

  • First line of address

  • Postcode

Individuals

  • National Insurance Number

  • First name

  • Last name

  • First line of address

  • Postcode

Trusts

  • Trust name

  • VAT number

  • First line of address

  • Postcode