Migrate your current ERP to Gestan

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You have an ERP that is unsuitable, insufficient, obsolete, too complex or too expensive, and you want to migrate to Gestan? Good choice !

The first question to ask is whether your current data is available and exportable. Indeed, some software provides data export procedures, others do not.

Here are the main points to consider for this operation.

It is possible to migrate:

• partially;
• totally.

This is the minimalist option, for which you will benefit from a change of exercise.

You can start from a completely empty database, or from a database to which at least the customer file and the product file are migrated.

You will enter all operations for the past financial year on the old ERP, and all operations concerning the new financial year on the new ERP.

It has the advantage of zero or almost zero cost, but requires juggling between the two software programs for a certain period of time, and in all cases verifying that consultation of histories on the old ERP will be possible at least for the duration of the possible tax audit (3 years in France).

The complete migration adds to the database data data from files generally composed of a main file, a line file (for example invoices and invoice lines), and in certain cases a file containing additional data to the previous two.

For certain data, it will be possible to use standard file import programs in Gestan: for example, for quotes, orders, invoices, etc., it is possible to import them via the standard parts import program from Gestan. For others, there is no native data import program, and a specific script will have to be developed.

This solution is ideal, except for its cost: in fact, establishing correspondences between field values and their meaning, as well as retrieving data from the different sources of the initial ERP and their mapping, is a lot of work. meticulous, can take a lot of time, and the development of scripts for importing certain data may require the assistance of experienced IT professionals. A complete ERP data migration project costs thousands of euros.

The first files to migrate are the client files, and the product files.

To do this, export the customer and product data from your current ERP, put them in the required format via a spreadsheet such as Calc (Libre Office) or Excel (Microsoft), and use the program for importing text files to import the data.

You will undoubtedly have to create additional records beforehand, for example, titles (Mr., Mrs., Ms.) for contacts, or product families, or even subfamilies, for products, and to ensure correspondence with the files to import.

If you manage stocks, you can proceed in the same way to import stock movements. Same, you will probably have to create stock movement types beforehand.

If you track the work times of your employees, you can easily import this data, after having created the users concerned in Gestan.

If you manage certain equipment for your customers, for example devices that you maintain or offer to rent, or even your own production resources, you can also do this easily.

Migration operations can be complex since the input files must ensure numerous matches (for example, 2 for contact status in Gestan corresponds to M., but it is necessary to find the correspondence with the data in the initial ERP ), or that they contain information distributed in several files, such as invoices for example, which include a main file of invoice headers, and a secondary file of invoice lines.

The import of the entries file is part of the first case, containing data which must be consistent with those of other files: such as the bank account identifier or the payment method, the import of the data basic can be carried out by program for importing text files. However, the link between the writing and the invoices must be made by a complementary script written in w-language.

The import of parts (quotes, orders, invoices, etc.) is part of the second case, because it involves importing invoice headers, and connect lines to them. The import is carried out by the parts import program, which however requires precise formatting of the initial data. Depending on the volumes, but also depending on the accessibility of the data in the old ERP, it may be relevant to develop a specific program for exporting the source data, in the Gestan import format.

You can import basic files yourself, such as customer data or product data.

This requires only basic computer knowledge (use of a spreadsheet or a text editor such as PSPad, SublimeText or other).

Importing parts is also possible on your own, although it can be time-consuming if you do not have a script to export the data into a usable format.

On the other hand, a complete migration can only be carried out with advanced IT knowledge in w-language and HFSQL, as well as an understanding of the data model.

ICS-Informatique can provide you with an expert technician to help you carry out these operations, or carry them out for you, at a daily price of 135% of development day price (in fact, the required skills exceed those of a developer).