CRM Migration Checklist

Decide what's moving and who owns it before you touch any data.

• List every object you need to migrate: contacts, companies, deals, activities, files, custom fields
• Pick a migration owner and a go-live date everyone agrees on
• Freeze non-essential changes in the old CRM during the cutover window
• Decide what NOT to migrate — archive dead records instead of carrying them over
• Document your old pipeline stages so you can map them cleanly later

Get a complete, verified copy of your data out of the old system.

• Export each object to CSV with all fields, including IDs and relationships
• Keep the original export files untouched as your source of truth and backup
• Record the row counts for every export — you'll reconcile against these later
• Export attachments and notes if they don't come through in the main files
• Confirm date, currency, and encoding formats so nothing garbles on import

Match every old field and stage to its new home — this is where migrations fail.

• Map each old field to a new field; create custom fields for anything that doesn't fit
• Map old pipeline stages to new stages and confirm the order is correct
• Standardize values — pick one format for phone numbers, statuses, and tags
• Decide how to handle owners and reassign records to the right new users
• Build a small test file of 20–30 records that covers your edge cases

Load the data — test batch first, full set second.

• Import the test batch and inspect every record by hand before going further
• Fix mapping errors found in the test, then re-export the corrected source
• Import in object order: companies first, then contacts, then deals and activities
• Preserve relationships so deals stay linked to the right contacts and companies
• Keep the old CRM live and read-only until the new one is fully verified

Prove the migration is complete and correct before you trust it.

• Reconcile record counts against the export totals you recorded in the Export phase
• Spot-check high-value accounts field by field against the old system
• Confirm open deals show the right stage, value, owner, and close date
• Check that automations, sequences, and reports run on the migrated data
• Have two people independently sign off that the data is trustworthy

Switch the team over cleanly and keep a safety net.

• Train the team on the new CRM before the switch, not after
• Set the old CRM to read-only and announce the new system is the source of truth
• Redirect lead capture forms and integrations to the new CRM
• Keep the old CRM accessible read-only for at least 30 days as a rollback safety net
• Run a one-week check-in to catch anything that slipped before you decommission