Multiple Accounts Merging into one; what happens to history?

[MMP]

We have an account with 7 offices which have been independent but in a branding decision will all be merging into 1 account. All the accounts have at least about a year of history, some more than a year. Service Orders, Contacts, Assets, Tasks, etc. We have figured out the billing and how to show location, but are wondering what happens to the "historical documents". Are they moved to the combined account?
If you have a best practice with regard to this, that would be super helpful.

Thanks!
Michele

[techcierge]

If they are 7 separate locations we keep 7 separate accounts open. Features coming in the next TP release will make this much easier and allow for certain contacts to be linked to all the accounts. Also make sure to set the accounts as 'related' and if you are providing a customer portal that the proper permissions are set to give users access.

[MMP]

Thanks Clifton.
In my effort to be brief I left out some details; this customer is constantly moving equipment from location to location and we've had them as linked and related but all the asset shifting is so time consuming (Administering Tigerpaw is a full time job!) as is tracking where employees are located. We are hoping having it all in one bucket will cut down on the administration; we've already sorted an tested the billing so that is good. Now just need to understand what happens with all the "before" Invoices, SOs, etc.

[techcierge]

Ah that makes sense. Yes it is a challenge moving things around. We have a national account that sets up at malls for 6 months at a time and moves all its gear. We do manually transfer it or else we could not keep track but I understand why you would want to consolidate. May be someone else can answer this specific question for you but have you tried making an 'archive' account and seeing what happens with your actual data?

[gaute]

Late reply, but: Tigerpaw has an account merge function, and we have used it frequently. It preserves both accounts' history quite well.

I would back up the database, do all the merging (with now other work being done in Tigerpaw) and study the result. But I believe you will see it's good.