Preparing to migrate

On this page: How to prepare your PTP data for migration

Next page: Syncing your PTP clients

Before migrating your data to IRIS Elements, you need to ensure that it is in good condition to be moved. This page will outline how to ensure your data is in a state that Elements can read and accept.

How to prepare your PTP data for migration

Why do I need to do this?

Elements manages clients a bit differently from PTP.

In PTP, for each customer, you need a client record to exist in every PTP product you are using.

For example, you have a client called Business Industries Ltd. You do corporation tax returns and accounts for them in PTP. This means you'll have a record for Business Industries Ltd in PTP Corporation Tax, and a record for Business Industries Ltd in PTP Accounts Production. These records do not automatically sync, you have to keep both updated separately.

In IRIS Elements, there is a single client record per entity - no matter how many products you subscribe to.

In our example situation, you will now 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.

Your data is moved from PTP to IRIS Elements using a tool called the Data Migration Agent (DMA). The DMA will take these previously separated client records and combine them into one, so IRIS Elements can understand it. In order for the DMA to do this, we need to make sure your data contains certain data points. The data points used to match records will depend on what type of client they are, e.g. a sole trade will have different matching criteria than a trust.

What do I need to do?

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. A name or first line of the address, for example, must match exactly in order to avoid duplicates.

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 IRIS Elements.

Prepare your data

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

Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR)

Sometimes also known as 'tax reference'.

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

Once you are confident that your data is in the right state, the next step is to sync your client records.

Next page: Syncing your PTP clients