Not quite. You should only need 2 databases.

Database 1 = Old Firm (OF) database, contains A/R as of February 10th and no remaining WIP. All billed out as of February 10th. At this point all you need to do is track the receipts to pay off those balances, and bill out reminders of previous balances that they still owe. (Assuming this income gets split some sort of way among OF partners.)

Database 2 = new database based on current for New Firm (NF). NO previous balances, and no WIP. I would go through and remove the names of clients that are not coming to the new firm just to clean things up, then just enter time and bill out of the Database 2 as you normally did.

****Clients being retained by your new firm will potentially get TWO bills with TWO balances. One from OF that reflects what is owed to the OF.  The balance of which only goes down as they pay it until they reach zero.  And one from NF that increases with new billings, and goes down as paid (normal behavior).

There is no reason to have a third database, and will only confuse you and your clients if you combine balances/charges from OF with NF.

My biggest question is this:  is the income from Old Firm for 1/1/2017-2/10/2017 going to belong entirely to New Firm?  Because if so, you really don't need to do anything at all and just keep going in the original database.  But if there is some sort of way that the 1/1/2017-2/10/2017 receipts will be handled differently - ex.: split amongst different partners, then you need to create the new database based on current to separate the income.

Hope that helps.

Hi Nancy,

Yes, income for work up until February 10 will be split between the partners of the old firm, so that database needs to be kept separately.

For Database 2, the problem is that they want previous balances from the old firm (for clients continuing with the new firm) to show up on the new firm's invoices, but also want to keep track of A/R from just the new firm. The only thing I knew to do is have Database 2 for just the new firm, and Database 3 based on Database 2, with previous balances brought over from Database 1.

Sending 2 invoices as you suggested would eliminate the need for the third database, but they don't want to do that. Am I on the right track with my solution?

Thanks so much!

No, just no. Tell them I said no.

The previous balances from Database 1 do not belong to the new firm and should not appear as A/R balances in Database 2. Trying to have a third database is just a nightmare. They will spend vastly more money tracking all of this than just cutting the cord and keeping two balances for a while.

No, just no. Tell them I said no.

The previous balances from Database 1 do not belong to the new firm and should not appear as A/R balances in Database 2. Trying to have a third database is just a nightmare. They will spend vastly more money tracking all of this than just cutting the cord and keeping two balances for a while.

Thank you, Nancy. I agree, but unfortunately I haven't been able to convince them. It may be that I just keep two databases and track what they want separately in an Excel spreadsheet. As long as they have the data they want, I believe this will work.

Thanks again!