For most businesses, the best MYOB to Xero conversion brings across three things: conversion balances at a clean cutover date, open items (each unpaid invoice and bill), and payroll year-to-date and leave balances. The full transaction history stays in your old MYOB company file, which you keep readable for as long as the ATO and your auditors need it. Full history conversion is a real option, and some businesses need it, but it costs more, takes longer and can carry old mistakes into a fresh file. Below is how to make the choice and how to look after the MYOB file once you've moved.
The three options for history in a MYOB to Xero conversion
Every conversion fits one of three patterns. The right one depends on what you'll need to see in Xero on day one, not on how much data you have.
1. Conversion balances only. You pick a cutover date and enter the trial balance (every account's closing figure) from MYOB as Xero's starting position. These starting figures are called conversion balances. Your balance sheet in Xero is correct from that date, and everything before it stays in MYOB. This is the cleanest option, but receivables and payables arrive as single totals, so you can't match a customer payment to a specific old invoice.
2. Conversion balances plus open items. This is the same as above, except every unpaid sales invoice and supplier bill is entered individually. When a customer pays an old invoice in week two, your team can receipt it against that invoice in Xero, and ageing reports and statements work straight away. This is where most growing businesses land. Getting the receivables and payables control accounts right is the fiddly part, because the individual items have to replace the totals, not sit on top of them.
3. Full transaction history. Every invoice, bill, payment and journal from previous years is moved into Xero, usually with a conversion tool. You get comparisons and drill-down in one place. The trade-offs are cost, time, and the risk of copying in years of miscoded transactions, old rounding and accounts nobody uses any more. If you're weighing up the tools, our Jet Convert vs MMC Convert comparison covers the differences.
A useful middle ground is to add monthly comparative balances for the prior year to option 1 or 2. That's one summary journal per month, so Xero's profit and loss can show this year against last year without moving thousands of transactions.
If you want the mechanics of entering those figures, see our guide to Xero conversion balances and the detail on trial balance conversion from MYOB to Xero.
How to decide which option you need
Ask what people will actually look up in Xero after cutover, and how often.
- Your accountant or auditor usually works from year-end figures. Conversion balances plus monthly comparatives cover most of their needs.
- Your accounts receivable team needs every unpaid invoice it will chase. That points to open items.
- Management reporting that compares months across years needs comparatives, not necessarily every transaction.
- Someone who regularly pulls up a customer's invoices from three years ago may be a real case for full history. If it happens twice a year, opening the old MYOB file is probably fine.
Here's an example. If your business sells on 60-day terms and has a few hundred open invoices at any time, entering those invoices individually is essential, but importing five years of paid invoices probably isn't. A business doing a few large jobs a year might only need balances.
The timing of cutover matters just as much. The end of a financial year is the cleanest point, because your accountant finalises the year in MYOB and Xero starts fresh. The end of a BAS quarter is the next best choice. A mid-month cutover works but makes reconciliation harder.
Payroll year-to-date and leave balances
Payroll is where conversions most often go wrong, because the ATO already holds figures for each employee through Single Touch Payroll (STP, the payroll reporting your software sends to the ATO each pay run).
If you move mid-financial-year, each employee's year-to-date gross, tax, super and allowances need to be entered in Xero so that the year-end STP finalisation adds up. Otherwise you risk duplicated or missing income showing for staff in myGov. Work through how the STP handover between MYOB and Xero should be done with your accountant before the first Xero pay run. Moving payroll on 1 July avoids most of this.
Leave balances need the same care. For each employee, record:
- annual leave owing
- personal/carer's leave owing
- long service leave accrued, if you track it
- any other leave types, such as rostered days off or time in lieu
Take MYOB's leave balance report as at the final MYOB pay run, enter the figures into Xero, and have someone check each employee line by line. Employees notice wrong leave balances quickly. It is much easier to find the error on cutover day than after a complaint.
What to do with your old MYOB company file
Moving to Xero doesn't end your record-keeping obligations. The ATO generally requires business records to be kept for five years, and companies have obligations under the Corporations Act to keep financial records for seven years. Your auditor may also need to look back further than your Xero file goes.
To keep the old file useful:
- Lock it at the cutover date. Once your accountant has signed off the final period in MYOB, set the lock period so nobody can post to it by accident. If the file is still open, two systems can disagree about the same period, which is exactly the problem described in systems that give different numbers.
- Check what access you keep after cancelling. MYOB's terms for access after a subscription ends depend on your product and plan, so confirm with MYOB what happens before you cancel. Don't assume it.
- Export a reference set of reports. Save PDFs and spreadsheets of the trial balance, general ledger, payroll registers, employee leave history, and receivables and payables at each year end. Store them somewhere backed up.
- Keep a backup of the company file itself. If you ever need to reopen it, you'll want the file as it stood at cutover.
- Write down where everything is. Record where the file lives, how to open it and who holds the login. This avoids the situation where only one person knows how it works.
When this is done well, Xero becomes your single source of truth (one place everyone takes the current numbers from), and the MYOB file becomes a locked, documented archive. When your auditor asks about a transaction from two years ago, someone opens the archive or the saved reports and answers in minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Can I move my MYOB history to Xero later if I start with balances only?
Yes, it's possible, but it's harder after Xero has live transactions in it. If you think you'll want history, decide before cutover.
Will my bank reconciliations carry over?
No. Reconciliation status doesn't transfer. You start reconciling bank feeds in Xero from the cutover date, and any unreconciled items at cutover should be listed and dealt with in the conversion balances.
Do I need to keep paying for MYOB after moving to Xero?
That depends on what MYOB allows on your plan once you cancel. Check before you cancel, and export your reports and a file backup either way so you aren't relying only on continued access.
Should payroll move at the same time as the accounts?
Not necessarily. Some businesses move the accounts mid-year and move payroll on 1 July to keep STP simple. Your accountant can help you weigh this up.
Talk it through before you pick a cutover date
The decision about history is easiest to get right before anything is moved. Our MYOB to Xero migration service covers conversion balances, open items, payroll and the archive plan. Every project is scoped and given a fixed quote after a free initial chat. If you'd like to talk through your situation, book a free initial chat or call us on 1300 470 091.