Most of what is written about data migration is written for companies with an IT department. This is the small business version: one owner, a system that no longer fits, years of records inside it, and nobody free to spend three weeks moving them.
We work in the software small businesses actually run on. Mindbody, Jane, SimplePractice, ChiroTouch, Acuity in practices. Jobber and Housecall Pro in field services and the trades. Guesty and Hostaway in rentals. Buildium and AppFolio in property management. QuickBooks underneath most of them. Based in Santa Cruz, working with businesses across the United States.
Both run side by side until the new one is proven right.
Nothing is cancelled on the old software until it is certain nothing was lost.
Three different things get called data migration.
Only one of them is this, and the other two have better answers elsewhere.
A new computer or phone
Documents, photos and email moved onto a new machine, in an afternoon. That is a job for a computer shop, it takes an afternoon, and there are good ones in Santa Cruz and Aptos. It is not what this page is about.
Servers and cloud platforms
Databases and workloads moved between data centres or into AWS or Azure. That is enterprise cloud contracting, priced and staffed accordingly.
The system your business runs on
Your booking, charting, jobs, tenants or invoicing moving from one product to another, with the history that sits behind them. The hard part is never the import.
The reading is the work. The import is an afternoon.
A move goes wrong in the records rather than in the software, and it does so without announcing itself.
Read the export first
Before anything is configured in the new system, the old one is exported and read. How many customers are duplicates. Which fields were used for something other than their name. What the history actually says. This is where the surprises live, and finding them now costs nothing.
Keep the new system silent
Reminders and confirmations stay switched off in the new system until the records are in and checked. A customer who gets a confirmation for an appointment from two years ago remembers it, and so does everyone they tell.
Check record against record
After the import, the new system is checked against the source it came from rather than eyeballed. Counts, dates, balances, and the bookings already sitting in the future. A migration that looks right on the summary screen can be wrong in a way nobody finds until month three.
Run both until the new one is proven
The old system stays live and readable until the new one is confirmed correct, and the rollback stays available. Then someone is there through the first live week, when the questions arrive on a Tuesday morning.
The order it runs in
- Export the old system and read the export, before anything is configured in the new one.
- Switch off every outbound message in the new system, so nothing reaches a customer while records are loading.
- Load in batches, then check the result against the system it came from, record by record.
- Keep both running, and keep the rollback, until the new one is confirmed correct.
- Retire the old system, with someone present through the first live week.
More on what a system move actually costs, including the hours nobody counts
What comes across, and what does not.
Worth knowing before the move rather than in the first week after it.
Comes across
- Customers and their contact details.
- Appointment and job history, including bookings already in the future.
- Invoices, payments and outstanding balances.
- Notes and documents, as text and files.
Does not come across
- Saved card details. The numbers sit with the payment processor rather than inside the software, so customers re-enter them, or you change processor as a deliberate decision.
- Settings, templates and automations. These are rebuilt rather than carried, which is the chance to drop the ones nobody used.
- Anything typed into the wrong field. It arrives as text, which is why the export is read first.
Often the honest answer is do not move.
Almost every system in use in a small business is running at a fraction of what it can do. If the thing you hate is a setting that was never finished, moving carries the same problem into a more expensive product.
Usually switched off, or never set up
- Reminders and confirmations that came with the plan.
- A waitlist that could fill a cancellation on its own.
- Intake forms sitting behind a setting nobody turned on.
- Recall and re-engagement tools included in the price and never touched.
That is what the free Business Analysis is for. It looks at your own data, weighs moving against staying, and puts the answer in writing along with every cost on both sides. If the answer is stay, it says stay, and the analysis is yours to keep either way.
Small business IT services in Santa Cruz County.
People searching for small business IT services usually want one of two different things, and it is worth knowing which you are after before you call anyone. We work in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Aptos, Capitola and Watsonville, and remotely for businesses outside the county.
Managed IT, which is not us
- Hardware, wifi and networks.
- Email accounts, backups and security.
- A machine that will not start.
- A help desk to ring when something breaks.
Santa Cruz has several firms who do that well. We are not one of them and we do not pretend to be.
The small business IT services we do provide
If your problem is the software your business runs inside, the records in it, the work it makes people do twice, and the question of what to move to and whether to move at all, that is this. Choosing the system, moving onto it with the records checked, connecting it to the other software you already pay for, and building the week around how you actually work. Thirty years of enterprise technology work, now spent on businesses where nobody's whole job is making the systems work.
One move, in numbers
What it looks like when the move is done properly.
A chiropractic practice moved its whole forward book off Mindbody in August, around a full patient schedule.
- 5,670Future appointments carried across, some of them booked more than two years ahead
- 4Days a week the practice kept seeing patients all the way through the move
- 0Patients who received an unintended message at any point
Common questions
Is this the same as moving files to a new computer?
No. Moving documents and photos onto a new laptop or phone is a job for a computer shop, and there are good ones locally. This is moving the system your business runs on: customer records, appointment history, invoices, notes and the settings around them, from one piece of software to another.
Will my customers notice?
They should not, and that is the standard the work is held to. The new system stays silent until it is confirmed correct, so nobody receives a reminder or a confirmation they were not expecting while records are being loaded.
How long does a move take?
For a small business with a few years of history, a few weeks from the first export to the old system being retired, and most of that is checking rather than loading. A practice with seven years of appointments took longer in the reading than in the import.
What does not come across?
Saved card details never transfer between systems, because the numbers are held by the payment processor rather than by the software. Anything stored as a note rather than as a field arrives as text, which is one more reason the export is read before anything is imported.
What if we should not move at all?
Then the analysis says so in writing, at no cost. When it does recommend a move, it shows why from your own records, and we handle the move so nothing is lost.
What does it cost?
The number is calculated from your own figures and stated plainly inside your analysis, along with every other cost, before you commit to anything.