Data Migration from Legacy Systems

Most new systems that staff reject did not fail because of the code, but because the data went in incomplete, duplicated or with balances that do not match reality. The accountant opens the system, finds a wrong customer balance, goes back to Excel, and the new system quietly dies.

The recurring cause is treating migration as a quick last step done on go-live day, when it is really a small project in its own right that needs planning, testing and sign-off from the people who own the data.

A successful migration is a shared responsibility, and assigning roles clearly from the start prevents the most common cause of delay: waiting for a decision nobody owns. We write this split into the project plan and both sides sign it off.

We handle all the technical work: extracting the data, building the conversion and cleansing tools, the trial and final migrations, and the reconciliation reports. Your team handles what nobody outside the company can decide: which name is correct for a duplicated customer, whether an item is still sold, and whether a balance is approved.

Delays on these decisions are the main reason migration projects overrun, so we gather questions into organised weekly lists instead of sending them piecemeal, and set a reply date for each list.

We split the migration into stages, each with a written output your team signs off, so nobody discovers a problem after go-live.

The better the preparation, the shorter the timeline and the lower the cost. Your data does not need to be clean, that is our job, but someone needs to own the decisions.

Balances are the most sensitive part. We agree a clear cut-off date with your accountant, usually a month-end or year-end, move opening balances for customers, suppliers, inventory and the chart of accounts, then reconcile the trial balance between the two systems before any go-live.

For historical invoices we decide together: move them all so they appear in account statements, or archive them in a read-only table? If the new system is connected to ZATCA (Fatoora) e-invoicing, old invoices are moved for reference only and are never resubmitted.

Migration files usually hold all of a company’s data in one place: customers, prices and payroll. We handle them in a protected environment, never exchange them by email or chat groups, delete intermediate copies after sign-off, and sign an NDA on request.

If the data includes personal data on customers or employees, we make sure it does not leave the agreed environment, in line with the PDPL.

Not everything in the old system deserves to move. Years of inactive customers, discontinued items and test data weigh the new system down and confuse staff in searches and reports. The right decision saves migration time and cost, and the new system starts clean.

The rule we suggest: what you need for daily work moves in full, what you occasionally need to look up is archived read-only, and what nobody needs is kept in a final copy of the old system and not moved. We ask each department to approve its list in writing, so nobody discovers after go-live that data they need did not move.

We pay special attention to data tied to legal obligations, such as tax invoices that must be retained for a set period and employee records linked to GOSI, which are never deleted even if they are not moved to the new system.