Converting historical transactions

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I am investigating the possibility of converting historical purchasing transactions for an upcoming project, specifically historical purchase orders.

I know this is not the norm, and I know it's going to add a significant number of hours to the project but the client is asking for nonetheless.

That said, has anyone ever done something like this, and do you know what it entails? The only solution I can think of is to use integration manager to convert all historical PO's first as open purchase orders, turn off posting, then go through the normal receipt process and eventually end up closing all of the PO's and using the Remove Completed Purchase Orders utility to get them into history. Is there an easier way to do this? I'm also considering bringing in a third party to do this part of the work. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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Michael maybe I am a little thick but I dont follow.

You say - convert all historical PO's first -

Then you say process them again in the system to move them 'back' to history.

Does that make sense? I sure I am just mis-understanding.

Sorry.

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Hey Bill, sorry for any confusion.

I don't see anywhere in Integration Manager to mark the purchase order as closed or fully received. The only solution I can think of is taking all of the purchase orders that GP would consider "closed" from the old system, bringing them into GP as "open", then closing them in GP and moving them to history. Is there something I'm missing in IM? If I can just mark them as closed during the integration that'd be ideal.

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,627 Moderator on at

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Mike, what system are you importing migrating from? How many years of history?

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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From you posted here I believe I now understand that you are migrating from 'an old' system to a new system? Is that correct.

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Frank and Bill: Yes, we are migrating from Macola to GP. We have an ex-Macola consultant on staff who knows the data structure and can get the information out of Macola.

We typically don't include the migration of historical transactions in the project scope, and I've honestly never done this before.

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,627 Moderator on at

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It is unusual and I would be pushing back HARD on migrating historical POs and SOs because it is going to cause all kinds of grief reconciling in the new system. I'm assuming you are going to have to migrate PO receipts, invoices, AP invoices, Sales orders, invoices, cash receipts, etc. Is this correct? If so, migrating all that will be a nightmare because you are correct, you'll have to import all the detail as open documents, post them, apply payments, so on and so on. It would be much better if they keep Macola alive for awhile to use for historical reference.

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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I would agree with Frank - trying to import "historical" data for the sake of having all the old data in the new system is the source of great many problems.

I have tried to do this in the past and after a number of hours of trying, we did as Frank suggested, and got the client to buy into the idea of keeping the old system alive for use of historical.

We used the OPEN Transactions as a means of training the staff on the new system. After about 2 months of running the new system, the users stopped accessing the old system and really never went back. They used the printed copy of posting documents that they had printed out of the old system.

So in the long run, they really never did need the historical data and were very pleased not to having imported all that old data.

Anyway, our experience.

Talk soon, take care.

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,627 Moderator on at

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I've been involved with more than 1 project where, partially through the migration of historical transactions, we gave up because of the number of hours expended. I guarantee you, it's a budget-buster. A better solution is to dump the historical data into a SQL table or tables and report off it using SSRS, if the customer insists on not keeping the old system alive.

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Redbeard 12,931 on at

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Michael,

Willoware.com has a really cool EZImport tool, which makes it possible to import historical transactions without many of the requirements, which typically increase the complexity and expense of such a project.

willoware.com/.../ezimport

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Community Member on at

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Thanks everybody! I am familiar with the willoware products, and actually suggested using the BOMImport tool for this client. Redbeard - your blog is awesome. Do you have any experience converting Bills of Material? Is a macro the best way without buying a gui tool like BOMImport or a full blown integration tool like smartconnect/scribe?

The SSRS report was something that I suggested to my managers as an alternative to migrating all of this data into GP and they seemed to like that idea. After talking, we're going to do something a la Frank's suggestion with SQL, which is why I'm marking his answer as verified.

Bill Campbell and Redbeard, thank you very much for your help! I really appreciate it!.

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