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5 Ways to Ensure ERP Migration Success

insightsoftware -
November 8, 2021

insightsoftware is a global provider of reporting, analytics, and performance management solutions, empowering organizations to unlock business data and transform the way finance and data teams operate.

11 2021 Blog 5waystoensureerpmigrationsuccess Website Blog

One of the biggest challenges you’ll face when you migrate your data to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is making sure it matches your old system. Successfully migrating your data from one ERP to the next is an essential, but often dreaded, step you must overcome to reap the benefits of a more modern ERP. When you are planning an ERP migration, sizing up the tools and technologies that will enable or inhibit the success of your data migration is an important step in the process. After all, most finance leaders know that migrating data from their old ERP and implementing a new ERP comes with the risk of being a costly, complex, and labor-intensive process that detracts from the actual work at hand. For this reason, you’re probably approaching your data migration project with a level of hesitation, knowing that this process typically isn’t seen as a value-added initiative.

When you migrate your ERP, you’ll be focused on legacy data, which is a combination of master data (the ledger, subledgers, and charts of accounts) and transactional data (varied and unpredictable posted entries that record your business operations over time). There are a variety of reasons you and your company are willing to pull the trigger on ERP migration, whether it be looking for a newer version of the same software, a different software for a compelling reason brought on by company change, or out of necessity due to the failings of the outdated ERP you currently have in place. No matter what your reason, there is likely a level of reservation due to the high stakes and little room for error when it comes to migrating your legacy data.

Further challenges with ERP migration include having the scruples to choose what data and reports to move over and what to leave behind, cleaning your data and converting it to the proper format, reworking the Chart of Accounts, including new accounting numbering schemes, and correctly implementing a final data validation. After the migration, you’ll also be faced with keeping an eye on your new ERP to make sure it’s doing all you need it to do. You don’t want any surprises come reporting time.

The success of an ERP migration hinges on your ability to create a seamless record of business transactions without any gaps in history or reporting. Once your new ERP is in place, financial and operational reporting should have access to uninterrupted data sets and forecasting that draws on a successive, accurate history. Essentially, the data will not give clues that it was ever transported from one system to another.

Why You Should Migrate

Even with the challenges of taking the new ERP plunge, it can still be a rewarding process if done right. Deploying the right team and tools can be the difference between success and failure of your ERP migration. Giving you control of your reporting and the ability to access your data without needing to understand the complex technical aspects of the underlying data structures is what insightsoftware does best. With reporting solutions that can eliminate complexity, reduce cost, and decrease risk during your lengthy ERP migration process, and provide fast, flexible reporting once your new system is live, your migration success is easily attainable.

To help you avoid the pitfalls of the ERP migration process, here are five ways you can make your leap into a newer, better ERP system easier:

1. Accelerating and De-Risking Validation

Knowing your many options is essential. Whether you are upgrading your ERP and staying with the same vendor, or switching to a new vendor, insightsoftware can help solve your financial reporting challenges with our reporting software connecting to and supporting over 140 ERP systems. insightsoftware can ease your migration process by accelerating and de-risking validation while continuing to meet your financial reporting needs with your new ERP.

2. Simplify Post Migration Data Clean-up

There is no doubt that data migration can be messy. You’ll likely be like many organizations that realize this immediately after implementing the new ERP. It can be a real wakeup call to discover just how much low quality and duplicated data was housed in your legacy system. insightsoftware solutions will help you to quickly identify these issues before you migrate your data, saving you time, and reducing costs.

3. Smarter Access to Legacy Data

Once your legacy data has been successfully migrated, there is little need for maintaining your legacy system. Using insightsoftware’s reporting tools, you’ll be able to leave your old system in the dust while still drawing on the data for reporting and forecasting. This will likely present you with a big cost saving opportunity because you can eliminate the bulk of named user licensing fees from the old system.

4. Reduce Post Implementation Training Time

Your new ERP interface will be unfamiliar, and users will require training. Mitigating the learning curve and bringing your employees up to speed is another serious factor that must be addressed. Using insightsoftware for your reporting cuts down the need to retrain employees and reduces lag-time as users will be working within a system they are familiar with. By adapting your existing insightsoftware reports to run against your new ERP system, your finance team will continue to enjoy a consistent reporting experience with access to the latest data and the ability to drill into transactional data to find and fix integrity and reconciliation issues.

5. Enable a Hybrid of On-Premises and Cloud Deployments

If you have customizations in place in your on-prem legacy ERP system, you may be reluctant to leave them behind. With the ability to report across both legacy on-prem and new Cloud environments, you can choose to move some standardized functionality to the cloud, while leaving more heavily customized modules on-prem so you can still see the big picture.

Taking the Right Steps to Success

Committing to a new ERP system can be rewarding if done correctly. If you take the right steps to minimize risk and set yourself up for success, your new system can be the better way of working you’ve been searching for.

To learn more, download the ERP migration whitepaper.

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