Great Plains Technical Consultant News: Dynamics GP Data Migration

>Great Plains by entering beginning balances to
If you are on the data export from legacyeach GL account in one General Ledger
accounting system, data massage in Excel or SQLtransaction, review and post it on the day of the
Server, and data conversion/migration tofirst date in the new fiscal period.  Preferred way
Microsoft Dynamics GP, we would like to give youit to start GP in production on January 1st, or
some technical recommendations, based on ourwhatever is your first day of your Corporate ERP
15 years Great Plains Consulting practice.  fiscal year
Plus, in our opinion data conversion 
recommendations or say stronger principles are3.       Open AR, AP.  We recommend you
applicable to other ERP and MRP systems:to import via Integration Manager unpaid AR and
 AP, then post them and wait for payments to be
1.       Master records migration.  This isissued (AP) or received (AR and SOP)
likely the required step, where you move your GP 
Chart of Accounts, Customers, Inventory Items,4.       Historical Data Conversion.  We
Bills of Materials, Vendors, Employees, etc.  In GPrecommend you to consider avoiding it and
these are so-called master records.  The simplestinstead keep legacy accounting open for inquiries. 
way is Dynamics GP Integration Manager.  If youIf this is absolutely impossible, consider creating
only need GL accounts, you could try direct SQLhistorical company in GP, closed for new
Insert into GL00100 and then run Check Links ontransactions and then move historical records
Account Master tables cluster.  In all other casesthere, here you can use SQL Insert statement. 
we do not recommend direct SQL insert, as it isPlease, never run check links in this historical
not guaranteed that business logic requiredcompany, as your historical data migration will
dependencies will be restored by Check Linkslikely be inconsistent, but good for querying. 
routineAnother way, which might be taken —
 import all your historical transactions via
2.       Beginning Balances.  When you areIntegration Manager and then post them by
done with master records migration, wehistorical dates.  The pitfalls of this approach
recommend you to keep historical transactionsmight be the problems with historical data export
lookup in your old accounting system: Peach Tree,quality and IM performance
MYOB, QuickBooks, or whatever it was.  In this 
case, you launch New Year or new fiscal period in5.