How to Migrate Your Translation Agency to a New System Without Losing Data

You can move a translation agency to a new management system without losing data if you treat it as a staged project: decide what to bring, clean it before it moves, run the old and new systems in parallel for a short period, then cut over. The data that matters most, clients, vendors, rates, translation memories and glossaries, can usually be moved with spreadsheets and standard translation formats. The risk is not the export, it is moving messy data and switching everything on one day.

Decide what you actually need to migrate

Do not copy everything. Sort your data into three groups:

• Must move: active clients and contacts, active vendors with languages and rates, open projects and quotes, translation memories and glossaries.
• Move if useful: closed projects of the last one to two years for reporting, invoice history for active clients.
• Archive, do not migrate: old projects, dormant clients, vendors you no longer use. Keep them in an export, not in the new system.

Starting with active vendors and clients, running new projects in the new system and bringing history across progressively is far less risky than one big move.

Clean the data first

Migration is the cheapest moment to fix data. Remove duplicate clients, merge vendors who appear twice, standardise language names and codes, and check that rates have a currency and a unit (per word, per hour, per page). Fixing this afterwards, inside a live system, is much harder.

Moving translation memories, glossaries and files

Translation memories move between tools in TMX, the standard exchange format, and terminology moves in TBX. Work in progress moves as XLIFF. Microsoft's localisation documentation gives a clear overview of translation memories and TMX and of localisation file formats. Three practical points:

• Tool vendors sometimes create their own variants of the standard formats. Always do a test export and import with a small sample and check that the segment count and metadata survived.
• Export glossaries separately from memories, because TBX holds terminology rather than segment pairs.
• If you merge memories from several sources, check for duplicates and conflicting entries before importing.

The Awtomated editor supports TMX and the most common file formats; see the editor and translation memory.

Moving clients, vendors and rates

For client lists, vendor databases and rate cards, spreadsheets are the usual route. Awtomated uses Excel templates: you download the format, fill it with your data and upload it. For large volumes, the Awtomated team can assist with direct database migration. If you are coming from a system such as Plunet, XTRF or Smartcat, export what the tool allows to Excel or CSV, and keep the original export as a backup. Word count analyses can also be brought across for quoting and invoicing, as described in our FAQs.

A realistic timeline

1. Week 0 to 1: plan. List data, owners, formats and what you will not migrate.
2. Week 1 to 2: clean and export. Fix duplicates, check rates and take a full backup.
3. Week 2 to 3: import and test. Import clients and vendors, run a pilot project end to end.
4. Week 3 to 8: run in parallel. New projects in the new system, old projects finished in the old one. Many teams run both for about four to eight weeks.
5. Cut over. Switch off the old system for new work and archive its data.

Timelines depend on the volume of data and how clean it is. Teams moving from spreadsheets are often running live workflows within days; teams moving from a heavily customised system usually need longer.

What usually goes wrong

• Migrating dirty data, then blaming the new system for the mess.
• Skipping the pilot project, so the first real test is a live client job.
• Training only the project managers, not the vendors and finance team.
• Forgetting that invoice numbering and tax settings must continue from the old system.
• Turning off the old system before the last open project is closed.

A migration checklist

• Backup of every export stored outside both systems
• Active clients, vendors and rates cleaned and imported
• Translation memories (TMX) and glossaries (TBX) tested on a sample
• Invoice numbering, tax and currency settings confirmed
• Roles and permissions set before users log in
• One pilot project completed from request to payment
• Training and daily check-ins planned for the first weeks

New customers of Awtomated get structured onboarding, and daily check-in calls in the first week and weekly workshops for the first two months are available. See book a demo to plan your migration with the team.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to migrate a translation agency to a new system?

Setup can take days for an agency moving from spreadsheets, while a full parallel run usually lasts around four to eight weeks. It depends mostly on how clean your data is.

Can I move my translation memories to a new tool?

Yes. TMX is the standard exchange format for translation memories, and TBX for terminology. Test with a sample first, because some tools add their own variations.

Will I lose my vendor data when I switch systems?

Not if you export and back it up first. Vendors, languages and rates can be moved with Excel templates, and you should keep the original export.

Should I move all my old projects?

Usually not. Move active work and recent history, and archive the rest as an export. Less data makes the first weeks simpler.