The new software looks good in the demo. Your team can create a customer, prepare a quote, and track the job. Before committing the business to it, ask for a demonstration in the other direction: taking the information back out.
An export becomes useful when someone can understand its contents and move them into the next process. Test that while the current provider is available. Keep the result with your implementation documents so a future migration starts with evidence.
The checks below are a proposed acceptance exercise for business software. Adjust them to the information your team actually uses and the services included in the provider's offer.
Define what must travel with the business
List the records needed for daily work. Depending on the system, these could include customers, quotes, orders, payments, uploaded documents, and the history of changes. Identify which items the offered export includes.
Ask about archived records, deleted items, and attachments separately. An export button might cover only the current view or active records. A list of document names might arrive without the documents themselves. Record those boundaries before scheduling a move.
For a fictional installation company, a completed job might need its customer, accepted quote, completion photos, and outstanding balance. Ask the team to choose a sample job that contains the same relationships, using fictional data for the exercise.
Open a real sample export
Request a sample generated by the software you are evaluating. Have the future operator open it with the tools the business plans to use. Confirm that text, dates, and amounts remain understandable outside the original screen.
The W3C's CSV on the Web primer explains why tabular data benefits from descriptions of its columns and expected values. A spreadsheet alone may leave those meanings ambiguous. Ask the provider for a field guide alongside the export.
That guide should explain identifiers, status values, currency, time zone, and empty fields where relevant. Have the business owner confirm the meaning of a total: for example, whether it includes tax or reflects a remaining balance. Resolve the ambiguity before an import changes its meaning.
Keep records connected
Check how the export links a customer to an order and an order to its attachments. Names are often insufficient: two customers can share a name, and a business may correct its trading name later.
Ask for stable identifiers and a description of the relationships between files. Follow the chosen fictional job through the export until its supporting documents are located. Note any link that only works while signed into the old system.
Have the technical team explain how attachments will be delivered and checked. Confirm whether the migration includes copying the files themselves. Keep an inventory that lets someone compare the expected documents with the files received.
Agree on the last day of changes
An export taken before the move can become stale while staff continue working. Decide who announces the cutoff, which activities pause, and how any new work is recorded during the transition.
Ask how records created after the first export will reach the new system. Document the comparison that prevents missing updates or importing the same order twice. If a manual procedure is needed, assign someone to reconcile it.
Confirm the practical conditions with the provider: export scope, delivery time, access duration, and any quoted assistance costs. Treat these as questions to resolve in the agreement, rather than assuming every software subscription includes the same exit service.
Prove a small import before the full move
Use a test environment in the receiving system. Import fictional records with an attachment, an unusual character in a name, an empty optional field, and an order that changes status. Compare the results with the original sample.
Have an operator perform an ordinary task using those imported records. Check totals and relationships, then record differences. Agree on who fixes each issue and what evidence will show that the correction worked.
Keep exports restricted to authorized people and delete temporary test copies through the agreed process. Carry the export checks into your first software pilot and your integration data agreement. Our custom software service can include a demonstrated export and import in the handover, so your team knows what it can carry forward.