Anchor Group Podcast: Episode 3
Listen on Spotify - Anchor Group Podcast, Episode 3: NetSuite Data Migration 101
Follow Us On LinkedIn!
- Caleb Schmitz, CRO at Anchor Group
- Paul Giese, Data Migration Expert and Founder of OptimalData
- Anchor Group (Company Page)
- OptimalData Consulting (Company Page)
Podcast Transcript
Caleb (00:00)
Paul, I’ve been wanting to talk to you more about data migration for ERP, specifically NetSuite. We have a lot of clients going through NetSuite implementations, and part of that process always involves deciding whether to migrate historical data from their legacy system—like QuickBooks or another ERP.
I often work with you to either subcontract or introduce the client directly to you when they have this need. I’ve been wanting to better understand data migration and its value because many clients ask about it. I want to hear their perspective and understand how much value it brings so I can help them make the right decision. That’s why I wanted to talk to you today.
Can you tell me more about OptimalData and data migration? Is that all you do? Also, what got you into the data migration space?
Paul (01:05)
Sure. Thanks, Caleb. It’s been great working with you, and I’m excited to share a bit more about my story and how I got into data migration.
I remember at SuiteWorld one year, someone asked, “Why do you just do data migration? That’s the worst part of the implementation.” And honestly, that’s a fair question.
My background is in accounting—I studied at Baylor University, worked at PWC in the Big Four, and did auditing for a couple of years. In 2016, I implemented NetSuite as an accounting manager at a biotech company. I remember filling out the CSV templates, probably like a lot of your clients do.
Later, I was pursuing some business ideas on the side and learned to code. Through that process, I became a consultant, helping biotech companies implement software. Most of those projects involved moving from QuickBooks to NetSuite.
One of my first clients asked, “Can we bring over detailed transactions?” My initial thought was that it wasn’t a great idea, but I said, “I’ll try.” I wrote some Python code to extract QuickBooks data and create the necessary CSV uploads. Now, after 90 clients, this has turned into a full-fledged business where I help companies migrate detailed transactions when they need them.
Caleb (02:37)
When clients ask for detailed transactions, what’s normally done if they don’t have them?
Paul (02:44)
Most NetSuite partners or NetSuite itself will migrate summary trial balances. That usually means a journal entry that records an opening balance sheet or 12–24 months of financial data in summary format.
That allows you to run historical financial statements, like comparing January 2025 vs. January 2024. But if you drill into something like salary expenses, you’ll only see one journal entry per line instead of all the individual transactions making up that balance.
Caleb (03:32)
So your reporting would be limited. If someone wanted to analyze that number, they wouldn’t be able to break it down further. When making decisions, how far back do businesses typically look at their summary or detailed data?
Paul (03:51)
I usually recommend bringing in 5–7 years of summary trial balance data and 1–2 years of detailed transactions. If you go live mid-year, having all the current year’s data in NetSuite helps with audits.
When auditors ask for all checks issued in 2025, it’s easier to pull everything from NetSuite rather than combining QuickBooks and NetSuite data. It’s also beneficial for financial planning and analysis (FP&A). If you want to compare spending trends—like why you spent $50,000 in Q2 and $200,000 in Q3 on a project—having all the data in NetSuite makes it easier.
For companies on the IPO track, the SEC requires at least two years of historical data for an S-1 filing. A reverse merger might require three years. Having that data already in NetSuite makes compliance much easier.
Then there are company-specific needs—like sales teams needing sales history by customer and item. If your sales cycle spans multiple years, you might need to see what a customer bought two years ago, how much they paid, and the exact SKU they purchased. You lose that level of detail if you only bring over summary trial balances.
Caleb (06:01)
I have a couple of questions there. You mentioned audits—do you need detailed transactions for an audit?
Paul (06:10)
No, it’s a nice-to-have, but not an absolute requirement. When I was an accounting manager in 2016, we didn’t bring over detailed transactions.
Our go-live was in November, so all reports from January through October came from QuickBooks, and November–December came from NetSuite. We had to manually combine the reports to create a single source file for the auditors.
That’s an inconvenience—but it’s doable. You can get through a financial statement audit without bringing over detailed transactions.
Caleb (06:57)
It just makes troubleshooting harder when the data isn’t there.
Paul (07:03)
Yeah, it’s more work to toggle between two systems. It’s especially tricky if your chart of accounts changed.
For example, if you had four-digit account numbers in QuickBooks but five-digit numbers in NetSuite, you constantly have to bridge the data. That’s why my services focus on making sure all historical data is in one place so clients don’t have to jump back and forth.
Caleb (07:49)
You mentioned IPOs—when the SEC requires two years of historical data, does that include detailed transactions or just summary-level data?
Paul (08:00)
It depends. Auditors are stricter about periods included in financial reporting, like SEC filings.
You can generate income statements and balance sheets with summary-level data, but if auditors ask, “What makes up this balance?” then you’ll have to drill deeper.
That’s when you might have to pull data from your old system to provide the details.
Caleb (08:38)
I don’t have much experience with audits. That’s not something I’ve dealt with personally since my focus is on setting up NetSuite, not daily accounting.
When you go through an audit, do businesses pay for the auditors themselves?
Paul (08:58)
Yep, the client typically pays for the auditors.
Caleb (09:10)
That’s what I figured.
If a company only has summary data in NetSuite, and auditors have to pull data from two systems, does that increase audit costs?
Paul (09:23)
It’s less about cost and more about time.
The real issue is the extra effort required from the controller or staff accountants. They have to prepare data and answer auditor questions while switching between two systems.
For small accounting teams, that’s a major pain point.
Caleb (09:42)
Makes sense. If you have to toggle between systems, it could take weeks of extra work for the controller.
Paul (09:49)
Exactly. It’s hard to estimate the exact time savings, but bringing data into one system saves a lot of effort.
Caleb (10:56)
So if a company expects to be audited, the time savings alone could justify the cost of detailed data migration.
But beyond that, there’s value in sales reporting. If a sales rep gets a call from a customer asking about a purchase from two years ago, they can quickly find it in NetSuite instead of digging through an old system.
For example, if a customer needs a replacement part but doesn’t remember the exact SKU, the sales rep can easily pull up past purchases and respond faster.
Paul (11:32)
Yeah, exactly. That’s a huge benefit.
Caleb (11:55)
It also helps sales managers analyze trends. If they need to track sales by item, detailed transaction data makes that possible.
Paul (12:03)
Yep.
And with NetSuite’s AI features—like intelligent recommendations and cash forecasting—those tools rely on historical data.
If you only bring in summary trial balances, it could take 12 months before those AI features provide meaningful insights.
Caleb (12:44)
That makes sense. NetSuite has had intelligent recommendations for a while, but now they’re enhancing it with AI-driven insights.
That applies both internally—for placing sales orders—and externally—for SuiteCommerce, where customers get personalized recommendations based on past purchases.
Paul (13:07)
Yep. And the more historical data you have, the more valuable those AI features become.
Caleb (14:09)
We’ve talked about biotech companies, but what about other industries? How does data migration play out in manufacturing?
Paul (14:33)
Manufacturing is a bit trickier. Migrating transactional data can be more complex because of inventory movements.
I usually recommend focusing on sales history since sales data is often the most critical for a business.
NetSuite recently added support for migrating item receipts and item fulfillments via CSV in the 2025.1 release. It took them about 10 years to add that, so now there are more opportunities for manufacturers to bring in transactional data.
Caleb (15:18)
Finally!
Paul (15:28)
Yeah.
For manufacturers, demand planning is a big factor, and having historical sales and procurement data can make forecasting more accurate.
Caleb (15:38)
That makes sense. Demand planning relies on historical data, so if it’s missing, forecasting won’t be as effective.
Paul (15:45)
Exactly. But I always get cautious with manufacturing data migrations. The accounting is much more complex compared to a SaaS company.
A SaaS company mainly deals with invoices and payroll—fairly straightforward. But a manufacturer has bills of materials, inventory movements, and production workflows, which add complexity and risk to data migration.
That’s especially true when coming from larger legacy systems like SAP, Dynamics, or Oracle, where heavy customizations make the migration process more challenging.
Caleb (16:31)
That makes sense. It’s not that you can’t migrate manufacturing data—it’s just that there are more variables, making it harder to guarantee a seamless migration.
Paul (16:42)
Exactly. As an accountant, my top priority is ensuring the trial balance ties out.
If a company goes live with unbalanced financials, it can create major issues—especially during audits. That’s why I tend to recommend migrating select data rather than everything.
Caleb (17:08)
You’re saying that for manufacturing, it’s wise not to bring in every transaction at the detailed level because the risk of something going wrong outweighs the benefits.
Paul (17:22)
Exactly. The key benefit is getting sales history and sales-by-item history. There are ways to get that data into NetSuite without risking issues with the general ledger.
Caleb (17:51)
So when you're measuring success for a data migration, the true measure is whether the trial balance ties out. That’s the most important thing, right?
Paul (18:00)
Yeah, exactly. That’s the number one goal. Other reporting benefits—like better insights for sales teams—are great, but if the GL doesn’t tie, that’s a failure.
I’ve seen horror stories where companies go live without tying out their GL, and three months later, they still can’t close their books. They can’t produce financial statements, and the whole ERP implementation gets derailed.
That’s why hiring a data migration expert is crucial. The worst-case scenario is going live and realizing your financials are a mess.
Caleb (18:45)
I was talking with a client recently about what defines a successful go-live. Some companies say, “If we can transact—place orders, fulfill them, and invoice—then we’re good.”
Other companies say, “We need everything in place, including reporting, and all financials have to tie.” Both approaches make sense, but the perfect implementation would accomplish both.
Paul (19:45)
Yeah, exactly. It’s like building a house—if you have a beautiful master bathroom, but the roof leaks, is it really a successful project? Probably not.
Caleb (19:53)
Or like moving into a “move-in ready” house, but none of the trim is finished. Technically, you can live there, but it’s not perfect.
Paul (20:06)
Right. An ERP implementation is the same. If you can’t transact and run basic reports, all the extra features don’t matter.
The must-haves are being able to reconcile cash, issue invoices, and generate basic financial reports. Those come first. Additional data, like historical transactions, is a nice-to-have, but if the data migration isn’t done properly, it can derail the entire project.
Caleb (20:41)
From the systems you’ve migrated into NetSuite, what are the most common ones?
Paul (20:53)
Eighty percent of my clients come from QuickBooks—either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop.
Companies typically move off QuickBooks for three main reasons:
- Compliance Issues – If they’re a pre-revenue biotech on the IPO track, QuickBooks isn’t SOX compliant. Auditors will flag issues because QuickBooks doesn’t have proper system controls.
- Multi-Subsidiary Complexity – If a company has five subsidiaries all running separate QuickBooks instances, their CFO has no easy way to consolidate financials. They’re doing intercompany accounting in Excel, which is a nightmare.
- Transaction Volume – Some businesses, especially e-commerce, just outgrow QuickBooks. If they’re processing 1,000+ transactions a day, QuickBooks slows down. NetSuite provides the system power they need.
Caleb (22:24)
Does QuickBooks only handle financials, or does it have any order management and inventory management functionality?
Paul (22:30)
QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise has some inventory functionality, but QuickBooks Online doesn’t.
Intuit is pushing people toward QuickBooks Online, but for inventory, many clients have to use add-ons like Fishbowl. They rely on "estimates," which act like sales orders but don’t provide great reporting.
Compared to NetSuite, QuickBooks is very limited.
Caleb (23:32)
Yeah, I’ve seen the same thing when scoping NetSuite implementations. What other ERPs have you migrated from?
Paul (23:45)
Surprisingly, my third most common migration is NetSuite to NetSuite!
This happens when a company acquires another business that already runs NetSuite, and they need to merge into a single instance.
Or, in private equity (PE) scenarios, PE firms buy and sell companies, so businesses often spin off from one NetSuite instance into another.
I’m working with a client right now who’s been through three NetSuite implementations in two years because of private equity transactions. She knows how the system works but is tired of constantly re-implementing NetSuite.
Caleb (24:43)
That makes sense. Even small changes—like enabling a single feature—can have major downstream impacts.
That’s why, when a client tells me, “We’re just like every other manufacturer,” I know that’s not true. Every company has something unique that changes the system setup.
Paul (25:18)
Yeah, totally. Companies are 80% the same, but the other 20% is what makes them unique. And that’s the hard part.
Caleb (25:49)
When migrating from a legacy system, how does the data migration process work?
Are clients responsible for cleansing their data before you step in? Or do you handle that?
Paul (25:49)
I take a white-glove approach. I like to get direct access to the legacy system so I can pull reports myself.
That way, clients don’t have to figure out how to export the data.
For light cleansing, my tool can clean up things like:
- Formatting company names
- Removing duplicate addresses
For heavy cleansing, like:
- Moving from a 4-digit to a 5-digit account structure
- Consolidating an item master from 50,000 SKUs to 10,000
That requires more guidance. I provide best practices, but the client has to decide their new structure.
Caleb (27:32)
That sounds more like a CFO-level decision.
Paul (27:38)
Exactly. The finance team needs to consider:
- What does the board want to see?
- What does the CEO need?
- What do auditors require?
- What reports does the sales team rely on?
It’s a balancing act. I can recommend best practices, but ultimately, those stakeholders drive the decision.
Caleb (28:23)
Yeah, chart of accounts is a big deal.
At Anchor Group, we use NetSuite ourselves, and we recently went through a major chart of accounts revision.
It’s possible to change your structure later, but that introduces a cutover date where reporting changes. That’s what we did.
When clients need CFO-level guidance, I often introduce them to a fractional CFO.
This helps before implementation starts—because we can’t go live without a finalized chart of accounts.
Paul (29:51)
Yeah, chart of accounts revisions can drag on for months.
I have a client merging 16 QuickBooks instances into one NetSuite account. They’ve spent 6+ months restructuring their chart, and they’re still not done.
Caleb (31:03)
And some clients say, “We want multi-book accounting in NetSuite.”
But I ask, “Do you really? Or could we just standardize the chart of accounts across entities?”
If you delay these decisions, you risk rework during the implementation. But if you delay go-live too much, you lose value.
There’s a balance—you want to minimize rework while still moving forward efficiently.
Paul (32:16)
Yeah. You’ll never have a perfect chart of accounts. The goal is to get it 80% right, go live, and adjust later if needed.
One trick I use: I add custom fields to historical data that preserve the legacy system segments.
That way, if the client realizes a mistake—like mapping an account incorrectly—we can easily fix it.
With a saved search, they can export all transactions coded to the wrong account and upload a CSV to remap them in NetSuite.
This trick has saved me hundreds of hours of rework.
Caleb (33:05)
That’s smart.
Those are the kinds of efficiency tricks that only come from doing data migration full-time.
Paul (33:14)
Yeah, exactly.
I kept running into clients saying, “Wait, we need to change this mapping”, and it was painful to fix it manually.
So I built this method to automate it.
If anyone is handling their own data migration, I highly recommend doing this—it will save so much time.
Caleb (33:38)
That’s really smart.
So when clients are trying to estimate the cost of data migration, what factors influence the price?
Paul (33:52)
I price projects based on the volume of transactions being migrated.
The more transactions, the more complex the project.
Other factors include:
- Number of subsidiaries – A single subsidiary is easier than migrating multiple QuickBooks files with intercompany transactions.
- Historical depth – Are we migrating one year of data? Two years? Five?
Most of my projects range between $10K-$15K.
Caleb (34:55)
That’s interesting.
If a company expects an audit, your service pays for itself in time savings alone.
Beyond that, it improves reporting, helps sales teams, and gives a longer trend history for analysis.
Doing this manually would cost a lot more in employee time.
Paul (35:14)
Yeah, exactly.
Caleb (35:21)
Before I met you, I usually discouraged clients from migrating detailed historical transactions.
I just assumed summary data was the best approach.
But after learning about the true value of that historical data, I’ve started asking more questions to evaluate it properly.
It’s not always necessary, but it’s worth vetting instead of assuming.
Paul (36:05)
Yeah, I agree.
Many companies can go live without detailed transactions and still be successful.
But if the ROI is there, then it’s worth doing.
Every company needs to weigh the benefits versus the cost.
Caleb (36:33)
So at the very least, it's a conversation about ROI.
Paul (36:36)
Exactly.
When I talk to clients, I say, “Is there a unique use case in your business that justifies this cost?”
For some, the answer is yes—especially if it helps them with audits, sales insights, or investor relations.
For others, it’s a nice-to-have, but not essential.
Caleb (37:49)
I’ve been helping our NetSuite managed services and e-commerce clients build better business justifications.
A lot of companies stop short of a full ROI calculation.
They list a few benefits, but they don’t dig deep into the full impact—quantitative and qualitative.
For example, the qualitative ROI could be:
- Positioning for investors
- Preparing for an IPO
The quantitative ROI could be:
- Reducing full-time employee costs
- Saving controller/accountant hours
Some IT directors I work with don’t always factor in true costs—like hiring a full-time employee at X dollars, but forgetting to include taxes, benefits, and overhead.
That’s why I encourage clients to do “napkin math”—a rough cost-benefit analysis that gives them a clear yes or no decision.
Paul (39:13)
Totally agree.
Caleb (39:39)
If sales teams ask the right questions upfront, they’ll save time in the long run.
Instead of trying to convince someone to buy something they don’t need, they can just lay out the numbers and let the ROI speak for itself.
That way, you get better client relationships because you’re actually helping them make the right decision.
Paul (40:19)
Exactly.
When you walk a client through the business justification, they feel like you’re on their side, not just selling them something.
Caleb (40:48)
Right.
I don’t want to sell something I can’t stand behind.
If the value isn’t there, I don’t want to push it—because long-term partnerships are built on trust.
I want clients who value our expertise, just like we value working with them.
Paul (40:48)
Yeah, 100%.
Caleb (41:16)
Helping a client say “Yes, this is worth it” or “No, it’s not” is equally valuable.
That saves everyone time.
If the numbers don’t add up, there’s no point in trying to force a sale.
Just swap out the variables, do some quick calculations, and you’ll get a clear answer.
Paul (41:29)
Exactly.
Caleb (41:44)
Well, this has been fun, Paul.
I learned a lot today about the true value of detailed historical data, how it impacts audits, and how it supports sales teams.
You answered all my questions, and I appreciate the insights.
Paul (42:05)
Great! I always enjoy chatting with you, Caleb.
The work you guys are doing at Anchor Group is fantastic, and I’m glad we can partner to help our clients.
Where to Listen to the Podcast
Find more episodes of the Anchor Group podcast!
Oracle NetSuite Alliance Partner, BigCommerce Certified Partner
As both a BigCommerce Certified Partner and an Oracle NetSuite Alliance Partner, Anchor Group is ready to handle BigCommerce and NetSuite projects alike! Whether you already have one platform and are looking to integrate the other, are considering a full-scale implementation of both platforms, or simply need support with ongoing customizations, our team is ready to help answer any questions you might have! Get in touch!
