Preparing Your Books for Migration: The 8-Step Checklist

The checklist

1. 1

   Reconcile everything

   Every bank, credit card and loan account through the conversion date.

2. 2

   Clean the chart of accounts

   Merge duplicates, archive dormant accounts, fix account types.

3. 3

   Fix uncategorized transactions

   Hunting them down after conversion costs triple.

4. 4

   Dedupe customers and vendors

   Consolidate duplicates and standardize names.

5. 5

   Archive stale list items

   Old items slow lookups and clutter reports.

6. 6

   Document custom fields

   Know what you must carry forward.

7. 7

   Export full backups

   Keep a frozen copy of the source file.

8. 8

   Freeze postings during cutover

   Agree on a no-posting window with your team.