Free checklist · printable
What to collect when you change bookkeepers.
Collect twelve things: owner-level system access, bank statements in the bank’s own format, the trial balance at the handover date, source documents, the receivables position, the payables position, the reconciliation status, payroll records, prior filings, prior reports, the list of everything unfinished, and a named sign-off on each side.
A handover is not finished when files are transferred. It is finished when the opening balances agree, every account ties to a statement, every open item has an owner, and the incoming provider has closed one full period without going back. The checklist below is built around that. It runs entirely in your browser — nothing you tick or type is sent anywhere or stored.
Twelve groups. Forty-eight items.
Each item carries who supplies it and why it matters, because the second one is what gets it supplied. Work through it in order — access first, then evidence, then balances — and tick an item only when you actually hold it. Promised is not received.
Tick an item when you physically have it, not when it has been promised. Everything here runs in your browser — nothing you tick or type is sent anywhere, saved, or stored, and reloading the page clears it. Print it and work through it with both providers on the same copy.
01Accounting system access
0 / 4Access is the gate. Nothing else on this list can be checked until it exists.
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YouUser access can be withdrawn by whoever granted it. Ownership cannot.
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YouA subscription that lapses with the engagement can lock you out of your own record.
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Outgoing providerThe only version you can later compare a migrated file against.
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Outgoing providerA forgotten bank feed or invoicing app keeps writing to the file after handover.
02Bank, card and processor access
0 / 4Statements are the outside evidence everything else is checked against.
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YouA spreadsheet someone typed is not a statement and cannot settle a disagreement.
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YouFeeds break silently when a provider’s credentials are revoked, and the gap is only noticed at close.
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YouThe account nobody mentions is where the unexplained balance is.
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YouAccess outlives engagements unless somebody explicitly ends it.
03Opening balances
0 / 4The single most important part of a handover, and the most often skipped.
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Outgoing providerEvery figure that follows has to agree with this or with a documented reason it does not.
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Outgoing providerAn opening balance that does not tie to a statement is an assumption with a number on it.
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Outgoing providerA control total without the detail behind it cannot be worked, chased or collected.
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Outgoing providerUnexplained balances become yours silently at the moment of transfer.
04Source documents
0 / 4The proof behind the entries. In a lapsed arrangement this is usually the biggest gap.
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Outgoing providerA ledger line is not evidence of what was agreed with the customer.
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You / outgoing providerThe most commonly missing category, and the one that costs most to reconstruct.
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YouRecurring entries cannot be verified or corrected without the terms they came from.
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YouRepayments split between interest and principal only when the schedule exists.
05Receivables
0 / 4Money owed to you, and the state each conversation was left in.
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Outgoing providerCurrency on every line, without exception. An amount without one is not a figure.
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Outgoing providerWithout it, follow-up restarts from zero and the customer notices immediately.
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Outgoing providerA promise is a dated expectation. Chasing over the top of one damages the relationship.
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Outgoing providerChasing an invoice that was settled by concession is the worst first impression a new arrangement can make.
06Payables
0 / 4Money you owe, including the commitments nobody has written down.
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Outgoing providerThe baseline for the first payment run under the new arrangement.
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Outgoing providerThe classic double payment happens in exactly this gap.
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YouAutomatic payments continue regardless of who is doing the books.
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YouThe only outside check on what you actually owe, as opposed to what was recorded.
07Reconciliation status
0 / 4How much of the work is genuinely finished, stated honestly.
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Outgoing providerTells you where real work stops and where assumption starts.
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Outgoing providerA reason turns a mystery into a task somebody can finish.
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Outgoing providerA suspense balance is unfinished work that has been given a number so a report could tie.
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Outgoing providerNet payouts hide fees, refunds and timing, and they rarely reconcile themselves.
08Payroll records
0 / 4The one area where a gap creates an obligation rather than an inconvenience.
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Outgoing provider / bureauPayroll is reconstructed with more difficulty than any other record.
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YouThe payroll file and the employment file drift apart quickly without this.
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Outgoing providerDeductions owed onward are somebody’s obligation on the day of transfer.
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YouPayroll platforms are the most common place a departing provider still holds the only login.
09Prior filings and correspondence
0 / 4What has already been submitted, and what is still open with an authority.
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You / outgoing providerThe submitted return, not the working paper behind it.
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YouA deadline does not move because the arrangement did.
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YouAn unanswered letter does not stop being open because a provider changed.
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YouPortal access registered to a departing provider is a slow and avoidable problem.
10Reports and prior-period accounts
0 / 4What was reported, and how it was built from the file.
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You / outgoing providerThe comparative every future report will be read against.
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Outgoing providerShows what the business has been told, which is what it currently believes.
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Outgoing providerReports rarely follow the raw chart of accounts, and the difference is invisible without this.
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Outgoing providerThis is precisely where the file and the published accounts diverge.
11Evidence and unresolved items
0 / 4The knowledge that lives in a person rather than a file. Ask while somebody is still willing.
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Outgoing providerThe most valuable document in a handover, and the one least often requested.
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Outgoing providerWithout the reasoning, a considered treatment looks like an error and gets undone.
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Outgoing providerOpen questions do not close by changing who is holding them.
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Outgoing providerA correction with no record is indistinguishable from an inconsistency.
12Sign-off
0 / 4A handover ends with somebody agreeing it ended. Otherwise it just stops.
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BothHandovers fail in the space between two organisations that both assume the other is finishing.
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Incoming providerThis, not the file transfer, is the moment a handover is actually complete.
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Incoming providerNames the point at which the new arrangement becomes accountable rather than orientating.
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YouIt should be after sign-off, not before, and it should be a date rather than an intention.
Complete when all four are true
- The opening balances agree. The incoming provider has reconciled to the outgoing trial balance, or has written down each difference and why it exists.
- Every bank and card account ties to a statement at the handover date — not to a spreadsheet, and not approximately.
- The unfinished list exists and is owned. Every open item has a name and a date against it, on one side or the other.
- One full period has been closed by the incoming provider without going back to the outgoing one.
Until the fourth condition is met, keep the outgoing provider reachable. Access can be removed on the sign-off date; goodwill is harder to get back.
The order matters more than the list.
Most handovers go wrong on timing rather than on content. Things get cancelled before they are replaced, or access is removed before anyone has checked what depended on it. This is the sequence that avoids the common failures.
| Step | Do this before | What breaks if it is done late |
|---|---|---|
| Secure access in your own name | Anything else | Every later request depends on somebody’s cooperation rather than on your own login. |
| Take a full export or backup | Any migration or clean-up | You lose the only version you could have compared the new file against. |
| Collect statements for the whole period | Agreeing opening balances | Balances are agreed against the file rather than against outside evidence, which proves nothing. |
| Get the trial balance and supporting listings | The incoming provider starts work | Work begins on a position nobody has agreed, and the disagreement surfaces at the first close. |
| Get the unfinished list and open queries | The outgoing relationship cools | The knowledge that only exists in a person leaves with the person. |
| Agree opening balances in writing | Closing the first period | The first close inherits an unresolved difference and takes twice as long. |
| Remove the outgoing provider’s access | Nothing — do this last | Done early, you lose the ability to ask a question that only they can answer. |
Keep the outgoing provider’s access live until sign-off, then remove it on a stated date. Both halves of that sentence matter.
A handover is not complete when the files arrive.
Transfer is an event, not an outcome. Plenty of handovers are declared finished at the point a folder of exports changes hands, and the problem surfaces two months later when the first set of accounts does not agree with anything. Four conditions decide whether it is genuinely done.
- The opening balances agree. The incoming provider has reconciled to the outgoing trial balance, or has written down each difference and the reason for it. A difference with a reason is fine. A difference without one is an unexploded problem.
- Every bank and card account ties to a statement at the handover date. Not to a spreadsheet, not approximately, and not for the main account only.
- The unfinished list exists and is owned. Every open item carries a name and a date, on one side or the other. Items with neither belong to nobody, which in practice means they belong to you.
- One full period has been closed by the incoming provider without going back to the outgoing one. This is the only test that exercises everything at once.
The five failures worth planning around.
These recur, and each has a cheap preventative measure that costs nothing if taken before notice is given.
- The subscription was never yours. The accounting file sits inside an account the provider owns, and access ends with the engagement. Check this now rather than at the point of leaving. If it is theirs, agree the transfer route in writing before you give notice.
- The books were never reconciled. A handover exposes rather than causes this. If bank accounts have not been agreed to statements for months, the handover has a catch-up job inside it, and it should be scoped and priced as one instead of absorbed silently by whoever arrives next.
- The arrangement lapsed rather than ended. Nobody is refusing; nobody is responding. Start from what you can obtain without the provider — bank statements, the accounting file if the subscription is yours, invoices from your own system — and treat the rest as reconstruction with a known cost.
- Receivables restart from zero. Nobody records what each customer was last told, so follow-up begins again from the beginning. Customers notice, and the ones who were about to pay become the ones who are now annoyed. Ask for the contact history specifically; it is rarely offered.
- Nobody signs anything off. Both providers behave reasonably, both assume the other is finishing, and the handover simply stops. A named person on each side and one date for agreeing opening balances prevents this entirely.
If you have not yet chosen the incoming provider, the questions to ask them are a separate exercise: the outsourced accounting provider checklist.
Where At Par fits — and the limits.
At Par takes over books from other arrangements regularly, and the handover is treated as a scoped piece of work rather than as free onboarding. That means agreeing opening balances against statements, listing what is genuinely unfinished before starting, and naming the first period to be closed. Where the books have fallen behind, the catch-up work is quoted separately so it is visible rather than absorbed.
From there: bookkeeping and month-end close, receivables and invoice follow-up, payroll, and management reporting, with a qualified accountant (ACCA) accountable for the work. If your file is in QuickBooks or Xero, it stays in your name and you keep owner-level access throughout. How records and evidence are protected is set out separately.
Records are yours throughout and on exit — the same standard this checklist applies to everyone else. That test is set out in what an outsourced accounting provider should own.
Asked by owners mid-switch.
What do I need from my old bookkeeper when I switch? +
Owner-level access to the accounting file, a full export or backup, the trial balance at the handover date with the receivables and payables listings behind it, bank and card balances agreed to statements, source documents for the period, payroll records and outstanding payroll liabilities, copies of filings as submitted, prior management reports and the mapping used to build them, and a written list of everything the outgoing provider knows is unfinished. That last item is the most useful and the least often requested.
How do I move my books from one accountant to another without losing history? +
Take a full export or backup before anything changes, and keep it untouched as the reference copy. Secure owner-level access to the file in an account the business controls rather than relying on user access granted by someone else. Agree the trial balance at the handover date in writing. Then let the incoming provider reconcile to it and document any difference. History is lost when the migration and the agreement of balances happen in the wrong order.
What are opening balances and why do they matter in a handover? +
Opening balances are the position of every account on the date responsibility transfers — the trial balance, the bank and card balances, and the listings of who owes the business money and who it owes. They matter because every figure produced afterwards is built on top of them. If they are wrong or unagreed, the error is not corrected by later work; it is carried forward invisibly and surfaces when the accounts are prepared.
My previous bookkeeper has stopped responding. What can I still get? +
More than most people expect. Bank and card statements come from the bank. Sales invoices usually exist in the invoicing system or in sent mail. Purchase invoices can often be re-requested from suppliers. Payroll records may sit with the payroll platform or bureau. Filings already made can generally be retrieved from the relevant authority portal where access is registered to the business. What cannot be recovered is reasoning — why a treatment was chosen — and that has to be reconstructed with fresh judgement.
How long does a bookkeeping handover take? +
The variable is the state of the records rather than the volume of files. Where the books are current and reconciled and access is straightforward, a handover is mostly administrative. Where months are unreconciled, or the accounting subscription belongs to the outgoing provider, or source documents are missing, the handover contains a reconstruction job and should be scoped and priced as one. Ask an incoming provider which period they will be first to close rather than how many weeks onboarding takes.
Do I have to tell my old provider I am leaving before I ask for my records? +
Practically, it is usually better to secure what you can access independently first — bank statements, an export from a file whose subscription is in your own name, invoices from your own systems — and then give notice and request the rest. That is not about concealment; it is about not making the recoverable part of your records depend on somebody else’s cooperation. Contractual notice terms should be checked, and an engagement letter usually sets them out.
What if the previous provider never reconciled the accounts? +
Then the handover contains catch-up work, and treating it as ordinary onboarding hides a real cost. Establish the date each account was last agreed to a statement, and treat everything after that date as unverified rather than complete. Scope the reconstruction separately, agree what period it covers, and do not let the incoming provider begin normal monthly work on top of an unverified base — the two get mixed together and neither can be relied on afterwards.
Who confirms that a bookkeeping handover is finished? +
A named person on each side, on a stated date. The meaningful confirmation is not the file transfer but the incoming provider agreeing the opening balances in writing, and then closing one full period without going back to the outgoing provider. Without a named owner on each side, both behave reasonably, both assume the other is finishing, and the handover quietly stops rather than completing.
Tell us what you have. We’ll tell you what is missing.
Send the state of play — what you hold, what you cannot get, and how far back the books are unreconciled. We will map it against the checklist and come back with what the handover actually involves.
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Reviewed by an ACCA on the At Par team · Last updated 29 July 2026 · This checklist is provider-neutral, runs entirely in your browser, and is not professional advice. See what we actually do.