Sage 200 - Migrating from Sage 50 Accounts - Best Practice Guide

The key to a successful data migration is starting with a data set that is free from data corruption. Checking for corruption forms part of the pre-migration tasks explained in the Guide To Migrating documentation. Whilst we offer plenty of advice to encourage customers and their Business Partners to adopt a robust data management strategy (such as performing regular 'Check Data' routines and maintaining a strong backup process), there may be occasions when corruption affects a data set, especially where factors outside of the customer's controlled are involved such as power cuts.

Therefore, you must ensure that the Check Data routine has been run on the data set prior to beginning any migration to Sage 200.

If errors are reported

You should not proceed any further with the migration at this stage until the errors are repaired. Business Partners must contact the Sage 50 Accounts Technical Support team to arrange for the data to be repaired. At this stage of the process, interaction with the Sage 200 Technical Support team ends and will not take place again until there is a 'clean' data set ready to migrate.

Data Repair information

The data repair will be completed free of charge under the 'Express Service' upon certain conditions being met. You must have the customer's account number to hand and ensure this is given to the technician on the Sage 50 Accounts Technical Support team. The Data Repair team will check to ensure that a valid Sage 200 order exists against the customer account.

If this is not the first instance of data repair in relation to a Sage 200 migration for this customer, the repair will be chargeable as per the Standard or Express charges, whichever is chosen by the Business Partner after consultation with the customer.

Business Partners must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that Sage 50 Accounts customers are using data with no corruption.  For example, when Sage 50 Accounts data in a Sage 200 test migration is found to have corruption, the Business Partner must ensure the customer stops processing until the data is repaired by Sage, returned and restored. 

If no errors are reported

Ensure you have carried out all steps within the 'pre-migration tasks' section of the guide. Take a backup of the customer data and ensure this is retained for the duration of the migration. As well as being used for the test migration, if assistance is required from Sage 200 technical support, this backup may be required for investigation should any issues be encountered during the migration to Sage 200.

You must consult the 'Guide to Migrating Data - Sage 50 to Sage 200' documentation every time you perform a data migration. Whilst many Business Partners will have conducted a migration several times before, there may be new restrictions, issues, processes or utilities available which were not available when a migration was last performed and this could affect the outcome of any test or live migration.

Any test migration should always follow the documentation. Particular consideration should be given to the following areas:

• Defect 11006 - missing invoices after migration.

  We strongly recommend checking sales orders and their respective invoices have migrated correctly during the test migration. For any site that wishes to report on invoice data that originated from Sage 50 Accounts, the following known issue should be considered.

  Sage 50 Accounts datasets that have a mismatch between the number of despatch lines and invoice lines do not migrate correctly. This can occur where there is a history of data corruption within Sage 50 Accounts. It can also occur when GDN settings have been switched off for a temporary period within Invoice and Order Defaults and then reinstated at a later date.

  The migration tool does not contain a pre-migration check to ensure that the number of despatch lines on an order match the number of invoice lines.
  In Sage 50 Accounts, you can choose whether or not to generate despatch notes (GDNs). If despatch notes are generated in Sage 50 Accounts, a new despatch record is created in Sage 200 when the data migration takes place. This despatch record is given a despatch number that matches the Sage 50 invoice number.
  As a result of the issue, the data migration that occurs does not have any links between the orders and the despatches/invoices after a particular problem order is migrated.

  • Some fields in Sage 200 allow fewer characters than those in Sage 50 Accounts. In these cases, the data is migrated up to the field length allowed in Sage 200. Some fields in Sage 200 do not allow certain characters which may be allowed in Sage 50 Accounts. In these cases, the data is migrated without characters that are restricted in Sage 200.
  • Refer to the Known Issues Database periodically to check for any new issues that may affect data migrations. You can access the Defects Portal here.

Carrying out a thorough check of the migration is key to the completion of a successful test migration. No migration should proceed without written evidence of such checks having taken place. We recommend that you check as much of the integrated data as possible, focussing in particular on areas of the program that are used heavily by the customer.

The points below are contained in the Guide to Migrating Data documentation but as a reminder, you must ensure the following is completed as part of the post-migration checks:

• Take a backup of the data immediately after the migration process has finished, and before making any subsequent changes.
• Run Balance Ledgers within Sage 200. The Guide to Migrating Data documentation explains in detail, what is checked by the Balance Ledgers routine and how to deal with any errors.
• Compare the key Sage 50 data with the equivalent data within Sage 200. If you have not previously done so, you should discuss with the customer which areas of the program are used most frequently and focus on these areas to begin with to ensure there are no issues with the data integrity. The 'post migration tasks' section of the Guide to Migrating Data documentation includes a table of example comparisons that should be carried out.
• Enter the remaining settings within Sage 200. The same guide can be used for further information regarding the settings that should be entered within the Sage 200 software.

We strongly encourage you to use the checklists available at the rear of the Guide to Migrating Data documentation. These can be used throughout the entire migration routine, both before, during and after the process.