Common Data Migration Errors and How to Detect Them

Moving data between systems can look successful while individual records still contain discrepancies. Reconciliation provides a structured way to compare what was expected with what arrived.

Common errors

Missing records: a source record has no corresponding destination record.
Unexpected records: the destination contains a record that was not present in the source set.
Changed values: a field differs between source and destination.
Duplicate keys: the destination contains more than one record for a key expected to be unique.
Blank or unusable keys: records cannot be reliably matched because their identifying key is empty or invalid.
Representation differences: dates or numbers may use different formats even when their underlying values are equivalent.

Why simple row counts are not enough

A source and destination can contain the same number of rows and still differ. A reliable reconciliation process therefore needs to check record identity and relevant values, not only totals.

BuildCheck Reconcile

BuildCheck Reconcile is a working browser-based software MVP for source-to-destination reconciliation and discrepancy detection. Its demonstration uses controlled synthetic data.

View the BuildCheck Reconcile software page →

View the BuildCheck Reconcile acquisition listing — US$5,000 →

This guide is educational. BuildCheck is not represented as a live production integration or as a certification, compliance, accounting or legal determination tool.