Migration is where ERP projects lose weeks and trust. It is also the part clients are least equipped to judge, because the work is invisible until something is wrong.
Decide what actually needs to move
Not everything should. A workable split for most businesses:
- Masters — migrate all. Customers, suppliers, items, tax rates, employees.
- Opening balances — migrate as of the cutover date. Outstanding receivables, payables, stock on hand.
- Transactions — migrate one to two years. Enough for comparison reporting.
- Older history — archive, do not migrate. Keep the old system readable for a year, or export to PDF and CSV.
Clean before you move
Duplicate masters are the most common defect. The same customer appears four times with slightly different spellings, and each carries part of the balance. De-duplicate in the old system where staff recognise the names, not in the new one where nobody does.
Validate with numbers, not impressions
- Record counts: customers, suppliers, items, open invoices — old versus new.
- Financial totals: total receivables, total payables, closing stock value must match to the rupee.
- Spot checks: pick twenty accounts across the range and verify each ledger line by line.
- Edge cases: the customer with a credit balance, the item with negative stock, the invoice with a partial credit note.