CRM data migration is the process of moving contacts, deals, and history from an old system (or spreadsheets) into a new one. Done carelessly, it imports years of accumulated mess; done well, it's a chance to clean up before starting fresh.
A practical migration checklist
Deduplicate before you import. Merging duplicate contact and company records in the old system first prevents the new system from inheriting the same clutter.
Decide what history actually matters. Not every old note or stale deal needs to migrate — importing only genuinely useful history keeps the new system trustworthy from day one.
Map fields deliberately, not automatically. A field named the same thing in two systems doesn't always mean the same thing — a 'status' field in one system might not correspond cleanly to a 'stage' in another.
Test with a small batch first. Migrating a sample of 50 records and checking the results catches mapping errors before they affect the whole database.
How long migration actually takes
Migration timing depends far more on data quality than data volume — a clean 10,000-record database can migrate faster than a messy 1,000-record one.
Platforms that connect directly to existing tools rather than requiring a one-time import/export can reduce migration risk substantially, since data stays live and synced rather than frozen at the moment of a manual export.