What Data Should We Bring into Unanet?
Data—it’s the soul of any project-based accounting system. The question is always, when we upgrade our company’s system, how much historical data should we bring into it? The initial reaction from most clients is, can we bring it all in (total company history)? We understand the desire to have all of your company’s history in one site/program. However, there are some things to consider:
- While the extracting of data is a relatively effortless process, the preparation of the import files, the importing of the data and the validation is what normally takes a lot of time and work. As a company, are you prepared to make that investment? Your accounting staff and project staff will be the ones validating the data brought into Unanet. Do they have the bandwidth to do that and the “regular” day job simultaneously?
- The system of record, for DCAA purposes, is NOT Unanet for the periods prior to your Unanet system go live date. If the DCAA should audit those pre-Unanet years, they will audit your organization’s records in the system of record for the period being audited. So, for those earlier years, Unanet will NOT be the system they will review.
- Are cumulative totals needed on customer invoices? If so, then you will need to ensure that your project time and expense, with the related customer invoices, are recorded in Unanet for those earlier years. This is true for any continuing projects post go live.
- Prior to export from your prior system, is the data what we would refer to as good (needing no adjustment) or is it somewhat “dirty” (needing a bit of massaging or adjustment/correction). If it’s in the dirty category, you will want to sanitize or clean it up prior to import into Unanet. This will give you a clean starting point. The last thing we want to do is to bring messy data into a new system. It’s always a best practice.
Ready to make the jump to Unanet? Reach out to us at BOOST and we can help guide you through the data minefield.
