You're switching to a new ERP platform, and suddenly one question won't leave you alone: What happens to all our old data?
Years of invoices, purchase orders, sales history, and financial records are sitting in your current system. You know you need that information for audits, customer service, and day-to-day decision-making. But figuring out where it should live after the transition? That part isn't always clear.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. At Stellar One, we talk with business leaders every day who are navigating this exact challenge. Many don't realize they have options until they're already deep into the process of ERP system adoption.
In this article, we'll walk you through the most common ways businesses store historical data during and after an ERP transition. We’ll answer questions like:
- Why Does Historical Data Storage Matter When You Move to an ERP Solution?
- What Are the Most Common Methods for Storing Historical Data?
- How Do the Methods of Historical Data Storage Compare?
- Who Is Each Method of Historical Data Storage Right For?
- What About Future-Proofing Your Historical Data, or Using AI in Your ERP Software?
By the end, you’ll be able to decide which approach makes the most sense for your business and move forward with full confidence.
Why Does Historical Data Storage Matter When You Move to an ERP Solution?
Before we get into the comparison, let's talk about why this decision is so important in the first place.
Your historical data tells the story of your business. It holds pricing trends, seasonal patterns, customer purchasing habits, and margin details that shape how you forecast, plan, and grow. Without easy access to that information, your team is left making decisions based on gut feelings instead of real numbers.
There's also a compliance side to consider. The IRS generally requires businesses to keep financial records for at least three years, though that window stretches to seven years in situations like bad debt deductions or worthless securities. If your historical data isn't stored in an accessible, reliable format, you could be putting your business at risk during an audit.
On the operational side, your sales and service teams regularly need to reference past transactions. If a customer calls asking about an order from two years ago, someone on your team needs to find that answer quickly and confidently. How and where you store your history directly impacts that ability.
What Are the Most Common Methods for Storing Historical Data?
When businesses transition to a new ERP platform, their historical data typically ends up in one of four places. Let's break each one down.
Method 1: Keeping the Legacy System Running
This is probably the most common approach in the ERP industry, and it usually sounds something like this: "Just keep your old system running somewhere in case you ever need it."
On the surface, it seems simple. You already own the system. The data is already there. Why not just leave it plugged in?
The problems tend to show up over time. The old system sits on aging hardware that could fail without warning. Staff members who knew how to use that system may move on, taking their knowledge with them. And if the old platform used a proprietary database, you may need a costly license just to access your own records.
For businesses moving off older on-premises systems, this approach often creates more risk than it solves. You're essentially betting that the hardware, the software, and the people who understand it will all stay available indefinitely. That's a bet that rarely pays off.
Method 2: Exporting Data to Spreadsheets
Another popular option is to export everything into Excel files. You pull your sales orders, invoices, and financial records into spreadsheets and store them on a shared drive or in a cloud folder like SharePoint.
This approach does create a copy of your data. But it comes with serious limitations:
- No controls or security: Anyone with access to the shared folder can open, edit, or accidentally delete the file. There's no audit trail and no way to restrict who changes what.
- No integration with your new system: Your Excel files and your new ERP platform don't talk to each other. If you want to compare last year's sales with this year's performance, you'll need to manually export data from your ERP, join it with your spreadsheet, and build pivot tables or formulas to make sense of it all.
- Limited usability: Sifting through thousands of rows in a spreadsheet to find a single invoice from three years ago is time-consuming and frustrating, especially for team members who aren't Excel experts.
Spreadsheets work well for quick snapshots, and Microsoft Excel does have its place next to many ERP solutions. That said, it wasn’t designed to serve as a long-term historical data warehouse.
Method 3: Storing a Legacy SQL Database Copy
If your old ERP platform ran on a SQL-based system, you might be able to download a copy of the database and store it on a separate server. This preserves the data in its original structure, which can be useful for certain reporting needs.
However, this option brings its own set of challenges. Someone on your team needs to know how to write SQL queries to pull information from those tables. SQL Server licenses can be expensive to maintain just for the purpose of looking up old records. And just like with Excel, there's no clean way to combine that historical data with the new information you're building in your ERP platform.
For many small and midsized businesses, this method requires technical expertise and ongoing costs that simply aren't practical.
Method 4: Integrating Historical Data Directly Into the New ERP Platform
The fourth option is to migrate your historical records directly into your new ERP system. Instead of the old data being kept in a separate place, it can live right alongside the new data your team creates every day.
This is the approach Stellar One takes with our unified historical data package for Acumatica's cloud ERP platform. Here's how it works.
Your legacy data, including sales orders, purchase orders, AR invoices, AP invoices, and other key historical documents, will be stored in dedicated historical tables within Acumatica. These tables are designed so that old records don't interfere with current inventory counts or general ledger balances, which is a common problem when historical invoices are imported directly into active ERP tables.
Because the historical data lives inside Acumatica, your team will be able to search and report on it the same way they work with current records. There's no switching between systems, no spreadsheet gymnastics, and no need for SQL expertise. Preconfigured reports come ready to use, and custom reporting is available for businesses with more specific needs.
The "unified" part of the package takes it a step further. Historical and current data can be combined into a single view, allowing you to see a continuous story of your business across years. That's especially valuable for mid-year go-lives where you need a full year of data for accurate reporting and comparison.
How Do the Methods of Historical Data Storage Compare?
Here's a side-by-side look at how each approach stacks up across the factors that matter most:
Accessibility: Keeping the legacy system running will give your team access, but only if the hardware survives and someone knows how to use the software. Spreadsheets and SQL copies are accessible but clunky. ERP integration will put historical data right where your team already works every day.
Security and controls: Legacy systems and SQL databases offer some built-in security, but maintaining them requires ongoing IT effort. Spreadsheets on shared drives have almost no access controls. ERP integration benefits from the same role-based access and security your team will already be using in the new system.
Reporting and analysis: Legacy systems and SQL copies require separate tools or queries. Spreadsheets need manual manipulation. ERP integration, done right, allows for unified reporting across old and new data, with preconfigured reports and customization options.
Long-term cost: Legacy systems need hardware maintenance and possibly licensing fees. SQL databases need server space and licenses. Spreadsheets seem free or close to free but carry hidden costs in labor and risk. ERP integration is typically included as part of the migration process with the right partner, like the approach Stellar One includes in its subscription model pricing.
Compliance readiness: The IRS requires businesses to maintain accessible financial records for varying periods depending on the type of document in question. ERP integration keeps those records organized, searchable, and audit-ready in one place. Alternative methods can leave records scattered or difficult to retrieve when you need them most.
Who Is Each Method of Historical Data Storage Right For?
Keeping the legacy system running might work for businesses with a short transition timeline who plan to fully decommission the old system within a few months. It's not a strong long-term solution.
Spreadsheet exports are reasonable for businesses with very small data sets or those that need to reference historical records only occasionally. If you just need a basic backup that someone might look at once a year, this method could work in a pinch.
SQL database copies could make sense for businesses with strong in-house IT teams who are comfortable managing databases and don't mind maintaining separate infrastructure for historical records.
ERP integration is the best fit for businesses that want a single source of truth. If your team needs regular access to historical records for customer service, auditing, sales analysis, or forecasting, having that data inside your ERP platform will remove the friction and risk that comes with every other method.
This breakdown is especially relevant for businesses migrating from QuickBooks to Acumatica, where automated tools can handle much of the historical data extraction and import. For companies coming from more complex or older legacy systems, the process involves data staging and cleanup to ensure quality before import.
What About Future-Proofing Your Historical Data, or Using AI in ERP Software?
It's worth thinking about where your data strategy is headed, not just where it is today. For one thing, AI capabilities in ERP systems are advancing quickly, and many of those tools rely on having a deep well of historical transaction data to generate meaningful insights.
Product recommendations, demand forecasting, and purchasing pattern analysis all get stronger with more data. If your historical records are locked away in spreadsheets or sitting on an old server, your AI tools can't access them. Integrating that data into your ERP platform from day one will position your business to take full advantage of these capabilities as they roll out.
Your Next Steps for Storing Historical Data
At the end of the day, how you store your historical data during an ERP transition comes down to how much value you want to get from that information going forward.
If you just need a static backup you'll rarely touch, a spreadsheet export or SQL copy might get the job done. But if you want your team to use historical data for customer service, reporting, compliance, and long-term planning, integrating it directly into your ERP platform is the approach that delivers the most value with the least ongoing effort.
At Stellar One, we've built our historical data migration process to be as straightforward as possible. Whether you're coming from QuickBooks or a more complex legacy system, our team will work to get your data cleaned, mapped, and loaded into Acumatica so it's ready on day one. To learn more, read our article on our unified data package and how it’s different from historical data migration alone [coming soon].
Not sure what kind of ERP platform fits your business? Start with a conversation. Our team can help you evaluate your options and understand what a transition would look like for your specific situation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Historical Data Storage in ERP Platforms