Off the spreadsheet,
without losing the year.

How do you move from spreadsheets to Bizzle?

1. 1

   Pick a start date

   The beginning of a VAT quarter or tax year. Everything before it stays as history; everything after it happens in Bizzle.

2. 2

   Connect the bank and inbox

   This does most of the work. Bizzle reads the feed and your email and rebuilds invoices, receipts and payments from what already exists, which is usually more complete than the spreadsheet.

3. 3

   Import the spreadsheet as CSV

   Tidy the columns, export as CSV, import. Do not spend a week perfecting it first — the bank feed will fill most gaps.

4. 4

   Set your opening position

   What you were owed, what you owed, and the bank balance at the start date. Three numbers, and they are what make everything afterwards correct.

5. 5

   Chase what is already overdue

   Load the unpaid invoices first. For most people moving off a spreadsheet, this step alone pays for the first year.

6. 6

   Stop updating the sheet

   Keep it as a file, stop editing it. Two records maintained in parallel is worse than either one alone.

What people get wrong

• —Keep the spreadsheet as a record. It is evidence for the periods it covers, and HMRC expects records retained for years after the return they support.
• —If your sheet has a formula error you have never noticed, migration is when it surfaces. That is uncomfortable and it is better than finding out in an enquiry.
• —Cash jobs recorded nowhere but memory need adding deliberately. The bank feed cannot rebuild what never touched the bank.

What it costs you in time

Most small businesses are running within a day. The parallel month afterwards is not work, it is a safety net — you carry on as normal and compare the two at month end.

The step worth paying for is the opening balance. An hour of your accountant's time there saves an unpleasant afternoon later, and they keep a free Bizzle login afterwards.