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.

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:

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