Migrating to a new CRM: the checklist that saves your data

A CRM migration starts by exporting the old system, before you pay for the new one. Then migrating in the right order, verifying with three numbers, and running a month in parallel.

Skipping any of those steps costs exactly the data you were changing systems to use better.

The most common mistake is starting by configuring the new CRM. It feels productive and ends with part of your history stranded in a system you no longer have access to.

Step 1: what should you export before doing anything?

The export from your current CRM is the first action, not one of them. The reason is simple: until the file is yours, you depend on someone else’s access.

What the export must contain:

1. 1

   Contacts and companies

   With every field, including ones that look useless — you can filter later.

2. 2

   Deals

   With stages, values and dates. This is the hardest thing to rebuild by hand.

3. 3

   Activity history

   Calls, emails, notes. Often exported as a separate file — check for it.

4. 4

   Custom fields

   The field list and their values. Without it the import turns your data into mush.

Step 2: what should you NOT move?

The urge to move everything is understandable and harmful. A base where half the records are dead corrupts every report in the new system and teaches the team not to trust the numbers.

Workable boundaries: contacts from the last 12–24 months, all open deals, full purchase history. Dead leads with no activity, duplicates and fields nobody filled in stay in the export file — not in the new CRM.

Step 3: migrate in the right order

Order matters, because objects reference each other:

1. Companies — the top level.
2. Contacts — attached to companies.
3. Deals — attached to contacts and companies.
4. Activities — attached to deals.

Breaking that order produces the worst kind of result: the data appears to be there, but the relationships are lost, and a customer record opens with no history.

Step 4: how do you verify with three numbers?

There’s no automatic «everything transferred». The working check is three numbers before and after:

• contact count;
• open deal count;
• total value in open deals.

If all three match, the structure came across. Then open five random records and read them: numbers won’t reveal a shifted field where a city landed in «job title».

Step 5: a month running in parallel

You don’t switch the old CRM off immediately — you leave it read-only for a month. Because missing data surfaces not during verification but when a specific person needs a specific history, usually in week two or three.

That month costs one extra subscription and regularly saves weeks of manual reconstruction.

Migration checklist

1. Export contacts, companies, deals, activities and the custom-field list.
2. Open every file and confirm the data is actually there.
3. Decide what isn’t moving (dead leads, duplicates, empty fields).
4. Migrate in order: companies → contacts → deals → activities.
5. Compare the three numbers before and after.
6. Manually check five random records.
7. Migrate integrations and confirm nothing is duplicating.
8. Keep the old CRM read-only for a month.
9. Only then cancel the subscription.