Data migration is where most NetSuite projects slip. Not because it is technically hard, but because the data is messier than anyone expected and the work starts too late. Use this checklist from day one.
1. Decide what to move
- Master data: customers, suppliers, items, price lists, locations, chart of accounts, employees.
- Open transactions: open sales orders, open purchase orders, unpaid invoices and bills, open quotes.
- Balances: opening ledger balances, inventory quantities and costs, bank balances.
- History: decide how much closed history to bring across. Often it is better to keep old history in the old system for reference and start NetSuite clean.
2. Clean before you move
- Merge duplicate customers and suppliers.
- Retire items you no longer sell.
- Fix missing or inconsistent fields: addresses, tax codes, units of measure, item categories.
- Standardize naming so the same thing is not spelled three ways.
- Agree who owns each data set and who signs it off.
3. Map old to new
- For every field you are moving, write down where it goes in NetSuite and what format it needs.
- Decide how to handle fields that do not have a home.
- Decide the cut-over date and how transactions in the gap are handled.
4. Test with a trial load
- Load a sample into a sandbox first.
- Check record counts, totals, and a sample of individual records by hand.
- Run the reports your team relies on and compare them to the old system.
- Fix the mapping, then load again. Repeat until it is clean.
5. Final load and checks
- Freeze changes in the old system at the agreed cut-over point.
- Load the final data.
- Reconcile opening balances, inventory totals, and open transactions to the old system.
- Get sign-off from the owners of each data set before go-live.
6. After go-live
- Keep the old system in read-only mode for reference.
- Watch the first weeks of transactions for anything the migration missed.
How we help
- Merge duplicate customers and suppliers.
- Retire items you no longer sell.
- Fix missing or inconsistent fields: addresses, tax codes, units of measure, item categories.
- Standardize naming so the same thing is not spelled three ways.
- Agree who owns each data set and who signs it off.
3. Map old to new
- For every field you are moving, write down where it goes in NetSuite and what format it needs.
- Decide how to handle fields that do not have a home.
- Decide the cut-over date and how transactions in the gap are handled.
4. Test with a trial load
- Load a sample into a sandbox first.
- Check record counts, totals, and a sample of individual records by hand.
- Run the reports your team relies on and compare them to the old system.
- Fix the mapping, then load again. Repeat until it is clean.
5. Final load and checks
- Freeze changes in the old system at the agreed cut-over point.
- Load the final data.
- Reconcile opening balances, inventory totals, and open transactions to the old system.
- Get sign-off from the owners of each data set before go-live.
6. After go-live
- Keep the old system in read-only mode for reference.
- Watch the first weeks of transactions for anything the migration missed.
How we help
- Load a sample into a sandbox first.
- Check record counts, totals, and a sample of individual records by hand.
- Run the reports your team relies on and compare them to the old system.
- Fix the mapping, then load again. Repeat until it is clean.
5. Final load and checks
- Freeze changes in the old system at the agreed cut-over point.
- Load the final data.
- Reconcile opening balances, inventory totals, and open transactions to the old system.
- Get sign-off from the owners of each data set before go-live.
6. After go-live
- Keep the old system in read-only mode for reference.
- Watch the first weeks of transactions for anything the migration missed.
How we help
- Keep the old system in read-only mode for reference.
- Watch the first weeks of transactions for anything the migration missed.
How we help
We plan migration at the start of every project, not the end, and we reconcile every load against your old system before anyone signs off.
Get help planning your migration
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