This is a question that many Navigator customer's have asked during their sign-up journey.

Nobody likes paying for something they no longer use!

But, the reality is that migrating to Navigator (or any other system) is a journey and not a point in time.

Sadly, it's not possible to switch one system off and another on in one go.

But why ?

The key items are :-
‍

1. Accounting Migration and Audit
2. Access to copy of invoices / job cards

Accounting Migration and Audit

It's a fact of life that Accountant's inherently live in the past! Whilst the rest of the business lives in the now, accountants are generally always in "last month". This isn't a criticism of Accountants - it's just how it is.

This means that whilst the rest of the best may have migrated to Navigator and be using it exclusively day to day, Accountants generally need to complete their final accounts up to the date of migration on the old system

A lot of accounting information and history will be required by your external Accountants to do their next Year End submissions.

Good news is that with some good planning, the Accounting transfer should last no longer than a few weeks.

Our advice is to then arrange your external accountants to prepare "Year End" style accounts up to the migration date and review the Accounting take-on to Navigator. This doesn't necessarily cost more as you then save at the year end, as some of the job is done.  Better still, you will get signed off on the Migration process at the time and any issues from the external accountant will be resolved quickly.

Access to Copy of Invoices / Job Cards

Generally, whilst data can be migrated to Navigator, and we can import digital printouts of invoices into Navigator as PDFs - depending on the system, it is often not possible to extract thousands of invoices in this style. This means that you will need your old software available for copy invoices, and for HMRC audits etc.

The good news here, is that it is generally possible to gain a Data Retrieval licence from your existing vendor (we provide a one-payment single user licence for data access for up to 6 years at a reasonable cost).

In reality, for the first few weeks, you have to print out copies of various documents (copy invoices requested by customers, copies of Job Cards for warranty etc). but this tails off remarkably quickly!


So, to answer the question "How Long" the answer generally is not long and up-to-6-years! Many of our customers have a single copy of their old system running in a dark corner for the very odd time they need it.


Whilst it's a factor to consider when migrating to a new solution, it's another item which with some planning has minimal impact.