Migrating Data from Your Old Accounting Solution to Dynamics GP

What does it mean to migrate data from one accounting solution to another? What are the costs and benefits? Must I migrate from one system to another?

Migrating data, simply put, is the process of moving data from here to there. But, like so much in the world of technology, things are not necessarily so straightforward.

Ideally, you want to migrate from one set of tables to the same or similar set of tables in the new solution; historical data to historical data, correct? Any number of products are promoted as migration tools, but too often they are something else: integration tools. For accounting solutions, integration tools will populate the pre-posting tables or the work tables, which is how integration tools should work.

The benefits may not support the costs of migrating data. When was the last time you processed a Historical Aged Trial Balance? Do you need your previous ERP data migrated?

But if you do keep your previous ERP around, you'll need to consider the cost of maintaining a separate system just for referencing, and how long you'll want it-- five years, seven, ten? If you keep your previous ERP intact for referencing, consider moving it to a separate PC and, if required, a separate SQL Server or database file handler, because you may need to retain the current OS indefinitely.

When migrating the data from your previous ERP, it shouldn't have to be "processed" again to get it into a historical state. Maybe we're all simply happy to have the data in one ERP, but there are additional costs when you have to re-process the data.

Before you use an integration tool and re-process your data, you should consider the man hours and costs ...