# Trucking TMS migration checklist

A TMS migration is a change to the daily operating record, not just a data import. Plan it around the loads and people that must keep moving during cutover. The checklist below is vendor-neutral and should be adapted to your contracts, systems, and operational risk.

## Before implementation

- ☐ Name the cutover owner and representatives from dispatch, tracking, billing, settlements, and IT.
- ☐ Inventory active loads, historical loads, customers, locations, drivers, equipment, rates, documents, and open exceptions.
- ☐ Decide which records must migrate, remain read-only in the old system, or be archived separately.
- ☐ Map each field to its new owner and define what counts as a valid record.
- ☐ Document external system connections and their exact current state.

## Pilot the real workflow

Pick several representative loads: ordinary, multi-stop, revised rate, exception, missing POD, and settlement adjustment. Run each through intake, assignment, tracking, delivery, billing, and pay review. Compare outputs with the old process. Record gaps and assign an owner before expanding the pilot.

## Prepare cutover

- ☐ Freeze or reconcile changes in the old system at a defined time.
- ☐ Export a recoverable copy of source data and documents.
- ☐ Test duplicate IDs, missing references, time zones, currencies, and open financial items.
- ☐ Train users by role and give them a clear escalation route.
- ☐ Define rollback criteria and how a load returns to the old process if needed.

## After cutover

Reconcile a sample of active loads daily until the team trusts the new record. Track missing documents, sync failures, billing corrections, and settlement discrepancies. Keep a list of decisions made outside the TMS and bring them into the record when resolved. Decide when the old system can become read-only and who approves that change.

RunaboutX's [trucking TMS](/tms/trucking/) has no public migration timetable or supported import inventory. Ask for those details using this checklist. The [integration planning guide](/resources/learn/tms-integration-planning/) helps prepare the field map, and the [RFP checklist](/resources/guides/tms-rfp-checklist/) helps compare vendor commitments.

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Canonical: https://www.runaboutx.com/resources/guides/tms-migration-checklist/
Last reviewed: 2026-10-14