Bringing Your OSM Accounts Across

If you have been keeping your accounts in OSM, you do not have to arrive in Scoutworks with an empty ledger. Download your accounts from OSM and upload the spreadsheet exactly as OSM gave it to you — there is no need to convert it to CSV first.

This is worth doing if you want year-on-year comparisons, or if you have taken on something like a Scout centre and need a few years of costs in one place. If you only want a clean start from today, you can skip the whole thing — set each account's opening balance and begin from there.

Two files to choose from#

OSM offers two downloads, and Scoutworks reads both. Pick one for any stretch of dates — importing both for the same months brings every transaction in twice.

The exact wording and menu positions in OSM change from time to time, so treat this as a guide and check it against your own OSM screen.

Before you start: add your accounts#

In Scoutworks, go to Finance → Accounting → Manage bank accounts and add each of your OSM accounts. Add the closed ones too — a closed account that carried real spending still belongs in your history.

You can leave the opening balance at £0.00 for now if you plan to import it — see Opening balances below.

Importing the cashbook#

The cashbook holds every account in one spreadsheet, so one import can fill them all.

1. Open Finance Actions → Import Statement and choose any of your accounts.
2. Drop in the cashbook exactly as OSM sent it. The workbook has several sheets — Scoutworks opens the Journal sheet for you, which is the one to import. You can pick a different sheet from Sheet to import if you need to.
3. Check the columns on the mapping step. OSM's column names are recognised for you.
4. On the Match accounts step, you see each account named in the file, with how many rows it holds. Choose the Scoutworks account each one belongs to, or Don't import these rows to leave an account out. Accounts with a clearly matching name are chosen for you, and you can carry on once every account has a choice.
5. Match your OSM categories to your Scoutworks categories, then review and import. Every row lands on the account you matched it to.

Importing one file per account#

In OSM, open Accounts → Bank accounts. Turn on Show closed accounts first — an account you closed two years ago still holds history you will want, and it is easy to miss. Open each account in turn and download its transactions.

Then, for each file: open Finance Actions → Import Statement, choose the matching account, and drop the file in. The wizard shows you how the columns have been understood, flags anything that looks like a repeat of something already imported, and lets you check the whole thing before it commits. One file, one account, one import at a time.

Opening balances#

Each per-account file from OSM starts with an Opening Balance row — the balance the account started from, and the date it applies to. Scoutworks does not import that row as a transaction. It offers it as the account's opening balance instead.

On the review step, the Opening balance panel shows each account, the figure from your file, and what the account holds now:

A balance you typed in yourself is never replaced unless you tick the box.

If your file has no Opening Balance row, set the balance by hand in Manage bank accounts, using the closing figure OSM shows for the day before your first transaction.

Things to expect#

Split payments arrive as separate rows. OSM's cashbook splits a payment across its categories — a single £278 payment from parents might be a dozen rows, one per category. Each of those rows comes across as its own transaction. The total is right, but it will not look like the single line on your bank statement. If matching against your statements matters most to you, use the per-account files instead.

Transfers between your own accounts need a second look. In the per-account files, a transfer arrives as ordinary money in on one account and money out on the other, with no link between them. If you top up a pre-paid card from your current account, match the two halves up once both accounts are imported, so the same money is not counted twice. See Bank reconciliation and restricted funds.

The cashbook leaves some money out. It has no transfers between your accounts, and no money you never gave a category in OSM — a donation nobody allocated, or receipts still waiting to be processed. So an account's balance after a cashbook import may not match the bank. The per-account files include every transaction.

If there is no download button#

The accounts area and its exports sit on OSM's paid plans. If you can see your accounts in OSM you should be able to download them, but if the option is not there, you have the same fallbacks as elsewhere in the move: use OSM's GDPR data download, or ask OSM support for a spreadsheet of your transactions.

Failing that, print each account to PDF for your records, set your opening balances in Scoutworks from the closing figures, and start fresh. It is a perfectly reasonable way to switch.

What's next#

• Moving from OSM to Scoutworks — the full migration checklist.
• Accounting and bookkeeping — how the ledger, the Bank Inbox and categories fit together.
• Managing bank accounts — adding accounts, opening balances and cash accounts.