16 companies migrated from Sage 200 to Xero in just over a month.
How Abacus Resource Solutions moved its recruitment group from Sage 200 to Xero around year-end and VAT deadlines, with foreign currency, data consolidation and entity-by-entity reconciliation built into the migration.
A multi-entity Sage 200 migration planned around a live finance team.
Abacus Resource Solutions is a recruitment business operating across a group of companies. The move from Sage 200 to Xero was driven by cost, usability and the need for a more practical cloud accounting environment across the group, while keeping the finance team working through a tightly managed transition.
The scope covered the current financial year for all 16 entities. Several companies used foreign currency, some had a base currency other than GBP, and the group included VAT-registered entities. The work was also taking place around year-end and VAT requirements, so sequencing mattered as much as speed.
Start with the largest and most complex company.
Rather than beginning with an easy entity, we migrated the largest company first. It carried the greatest volume and complexity, so completing it early demonstrated how the migration, reconciliation and handover would work before the project moved through the rest of the group.
It also meant the Abacus finance team could return to day-to-day bookkeeping in Xero for its largest entity while we continued migrating the remaining companies. From there, the project progressed at approximately three entities per week, with individual organisations generally delivered in one to two days, including the larger entities rather than only the smallest companies.
| Stage | Approach | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Largest entity first | Begin with the highest-volume, most complex company. | Prove the migration approach early and return the main finance workload to Xero. |
| 2 · Prioritise risk | Give particular attention to larger and foreign-currency entities around year-end and VAT requirements. | Keep accounting deadlines visible within the migration sequence. |
| 3 · Phased delivery | Progress through roughly three entities each week. | Allow the finance team to review completed organisations while the next migrations continued. |
| 4 · Reconcile before go-live | Provide reconciliation and migration workings for each company. | Give the client a clear basis for review before live bookkeeping continued in Xero. |
Consolidating around 35,000 sales lines for the largest company.
The parent company had a particularly high volume of sales data. Rather than reproducing approximately 35,000 individual sales lines in Xero, the agreed migration approach consolidated them into daily sales lines.
The objective was not simply to make the file smaller. It was to retain the relevant accounting history while making the high-volume data clearer and more practical in Xero. The consolidation workings and the general-ledger data used to prepare the migration formed part of the supporting migration information provided to the client.
See how we approach data restructuring during a Xero migration →
Very little extraction work was required from the client.
Abacus did not have to build migration templates or manually prepare the Sage 200 accounting history for us. Their IT team provided access to Sage 200 and an active Microsoft Excel licence on the machine we used. We handled the detailed extraction and preparation ourselves.
The Chart of Accounts was already well organised, so its overall structure was retained. We still carried out appropriate clean-up of the Chart of Accounts and contact data before preparing the Xero organisations, rather than changing a structure that already worked for the finance team.
Explaining Sage 200 exchange-rate and revaluation differences.
Several entities used foreign currency and some operated with a base currency other than GBP. During the migration and reconciliation work, we identified differences in exchange-rate and revaluation treatment across debtors, creditors and bank balances.
These were not hidden by forcing the migrated figures to agree. Where a discrepancy originated in the Sage 200 data, it was traced, explained to the client and, where appropriate, the client was made aware of adjustments required in the old system. This allowed the Xero result and the migration reconciliation to show clearly what had happened rather than leaving unexplained differences behind.
Each company came with the evidence behind the migration.
The handover was not simply access to a populated Xero organisation. Each migrated entity was accompanied by reconciliation and working information so the finance team could review the result before going live.
| Delivered for each entity | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Trial balance comparison | Compare the migrated Xero balances with the agreed Sage 200 source position. |
| Aged debtors and creditors reconciliation | Validate outstanding customer and supplier balances and allocations. |
| VAT comparison | Compare VAT between the old and new systems and document relevant differences. |
| Period explanations | Explain transactions falling outside the expected accounting periods where relevant. |
| Cleaned contact data | Provide a more usable contact list in the new organisations. |
| Migration and consolidation workings | Show the GL data and, where applicable, consolidation logic used to prepare the migration. |
| Post-migration adjustments | Reflect relevant items that had been reconciled late after the migration cut-off. |
| Xero transaction links | Provide direct links within the migration workings to the migrated Xero transactions. |
Review, confirm, then continue working in Xero.
As each migration and reconciliation pack was completed, Abacus received access to review the Xero organisation. Once the result was confirmed, the entity could go live straight away rather than waiting for all 16 companies to be finished.
The finance team was already confident using Xero, so formal training was not required for this project. Two hours of Xero training is available free of charge with our migrations where a team does need help getting comfortable with the new system.
The Abacus group finance team and wider staff worked closely with us throughout the project. Their Xero account manager also supported the transition of the Xero subscriptions and the group discount available to the client. With the source structure organised and everyone responsive, the project could move quickly without compromising the reconciliation work.
16 Sage 200 companies delivered between early August and early September 2026.
All 16 companies were migrated in a little over one month. The measurable result at this stage is the migration itself: a phased move from Sage 200 to Xero across the group, delivered around live accounting deadlines, with the current financial year migrated and each organisation reconciled before handover.
It is too early to attribute longer-term efficiency or reporting improvements to the move. What the project does demonstrate is how a large multi-entity migration can be sequenced so that the finance team starts working in completed Xero organisations while the remaining companies continue through migration.
“Seamless Migration with Exceptional Support”
“We had a fantastic experience working with the team to migrate 16 companies from Sage 200 to Xero. What could have been a very complex and disruptive project was handled incredibly smoothly, with all 16 companies successfully migrated in just over a month. The planning, organisation and guidance throughout the process gave us real confidence and were instrumental in helping us make this project a success. A special mention has to go to Florentina, who was absolutely fantastic throughout the project. Her knowledge, responsiveness and commitment were exceptional. She went above and beyond on numerous occasions, including working late into the evenings to help us meet our deadlines.”