For many businesses using accounting software to store their financial data, migrating it to a completely new system can be an arduous task. Without a skilled professional to help you with the transition, you may run into a variety of issues and errors that may need to be redone. To ensure your company is ready for any tax audits or end-of-year tax collections, you will need to have a seamless transfer of financial data between existing accounting software.
At SFIR Consulting, we’re a professional accounting data migration company that has extensive accounting product knowledge and expertise. We’ll make the process a hassle-free experience and make sure a smooth transition is set from one accounting software to another. We’ve migrated data from many software such as Quickbooks, Zoho Books, SAP and Sage, while considering the size of your business and the amount of data available. Our team has the necessary tools and knowledge to provide excellent accounting data migration for your company, while also giving your financial team more reassurance.
Here is what you need to know about how data migration works and what to consider as you go forward with the process.
What is Data Migration in Accounting?
Data migration is the process of moving stored digital information between different systems or formats. It can happen for a number of reasons, ranging from server replacement or maintenance, data center changes, data consolidation, and major system upgrades. Any data migration effort must be done carefully to minimize risks and ensure every information is accounted for.
If data migration isn’t done properly, you may lose your important data in the very worst-case scenario. Backing data up beforehand will resolve this issue and ensure you have a safety net in place if something does go awry. Your company may also have to deal with downtime, compatibility issues, and system performance issues. Data migration involves transferring large and diverse amounts of data to another accounting system and should be performed with the utmost care.
To minimize any further risks, we will work with your business to create detailed data migration policies that prioritize back ups, transfer order, and concurrent data environments. We’ll also consider any temporary stopgaps if there is downtime during the migration process. This may be due to limits on physical storage or additional time needed to ensure the data is all secure.
Data migration can be complicated, but we’ll make it easier for you and your team by making sure we follow the rules for a seamless process.
What Are the Rules For Data Migration?
There are no hard-set rules for data migration, but your company will need to follow a set of guidelines for best practice. Unlike other data migration consulting services, we will transition your system through an opening balance method and use your year-end balances to its advantage.
By doing so, we will be able to safely transfer all your data and relevant information to newer systems with ease. It’ll also make it easier to follow regulatory compliance requirements to ensure no one is doing anything wrong. As such, your lists and accounts will be imported accurately, with nothing left behind during the process.
Other rules for data migration to consider is the pre-migration planning, where we will evaluate the data being moved for a stable transfer process. From there, the project should be initiated by identifying brief key stakeholders in your business. Afterwards, start establishing a robust data quality management process and analyze how to move data from your current legacy systems.
Data migration also involves determining what data to move and the quality of each of them before and after. Once this has been done, we will execute and validate the new system to ensure that requirements have been met and the data is viable for business use. Lastly, we’ll shut down and dispose of any old accounting systems that were previously used.
What is the Best Approach For Data Migration?
The best approach to data migration often starts with determining the scope of the transfer and the goal you want to accomplish. It’s great to get a handle on what data needs to be migrated, then document the formats your company will adopt. Have a migration time frame in place and document every change made during the process. Lastly, ensure that the migration plan is compatible with existing policies and can work well with encryption or verified chain-of-custody protection.
The end goal for data migration will largely depend on the size of your business and your objectives in the future. We will assess the value of your financial data and consult with you on the best software that will benefit you the most. By undergoing data migration, you will be able to allow yourself to help your business grow along with your business objectives.
Contact SFIR Consulting today to learn more about data migration and how we can help you better understand the process, break down expectations, and finalize any leftover details.
