[Dossier] E-invoicing: the 10 steps to successful product migration
Published on 18 April 2017
We have recently reviewed the different reasons for changing e-invoicing providers, as well as the criteria for making the right choice. We will now give you an overview of all you can expect during an e-invoicing system migration. A migration plan should include regulatory, organizational, and technical expertise, and should come with a timeline, steps, risk management, and a business impact analysis. A great migration plan will walk any business owner through each step in order to provide complete visibility of the process. If you’re already feeling a little lost, here are the 10 most important steps that you will go through when you migrate your e-invoicing solution to the cloud.
Initialization period
This is the period where the software provider will assess all client needs, build a detailed project plan, review the layout of the requested setup, and analyze all flows and potential pitfalls. E-invoicing migration cannot be performed smoothly if all of these moving parts have not been ironed out correctly in the first place.
Specification workshops
At this juncture in the project, client-specific areas such as contacts, profiles, business flows, archiving creation and management, as well as any legal entities are identified and mapped out.
Opening of accounts
Once the flows and access levels have been determined, profiles and accounts are opened. These accounts will be used during testing to ensure security as well as correct functioning of each access and flow. This includes both internal and external accounts.
Configuration and development
Once all specifications are in place, the migration process can be configured and developed according to plan. Here is when the interface can be designed. The timeline for project development depends entirely on the scale and difficulty of the migration project at hand.
Archive recovery
Once the new solution has been configured, all archives are recovered and restored within the system. Any previous digital document restored to the new digital safe system must comply with all existing compliance laws.
Product testing
Before the launch of any new e-invoicing system, it has to be tested extensively. Testers will run through all types of flows and scenarios, markup bugs to be fixed, and then conduct regression testing. Your provider will work with you to draw up the different user case scenarios that are specific to your company.
User training
Training can be provided in different ways: webinars, on-site classes, tutorials, or modules, or the one-on-one training of one or more employees who will go on to be in charge of training everyone else. User training should ideally be completed before launch.
Production Launch
The moment everyone has been waiting for: launch day! At this point, your old e-invoicing system will be completely replaced by a live version of your new one, rendering the old system obsolete. Your provider is very much involved in ensuring that the new system launch goes without a hitch, and any issues that do arise will be addressed on the spot.
Pilot study
Once the SaaS e-invoicing system has been launched and running, the initial launch is studied in detail to make sure that nothing was missed in the previous steps. The earlier this part is done the better, as it will ensure bugs aren’t encountered post-migration.
Next waves of migration
If you have multiple data sources, or if you are starting with a small pilot area, you may be undergoing several waves of migration. These will happen after the initial launch has been deemed successful.
End of migration project
Once the system has been entirely migrated and everything is functioning as planned, the e-invoicing migration project can be considered finalized.
Governance run
At this juncture, your company will run through the system to ensure that it complies with all company policies, business processes, and legal requirements that are already in place.
Develop possible roll-back/contingency plan
Every system should have a contingency plan in place in case it runs into issues or if you should be required to roll back for any reason. This step will take place once the system is running smoothly.
Migration projects do not have to be arduous tasks, as long as you have a detailed plan with all the necessary steps in place! Hopefully, the above information can help with that. For more information on how exciting the e-invoicing market has become with all its changes, please have a look at our recent article.
