The whole engagement, in the open — because you should know exactly what you're buying before the first call.
Before we map a single field or touch a successor system, we take a complete snapshot of your system while it still runs — the database, the documents, the configuration, everything. Two copies, held in isolated storage. Your originals never leave your possession, and nothing of ours replaces them until you've signed off on the final result. If everything downstream went wrong, the preservation copies alone would mean nothing is lost.
We snapshot the entire system while it still runs — two copies, one kept offline, in storage isolated to your engagement. You keep your originals until final sign-off, so there is never a moment where the only copy is ours.
Preservation Manifest
We pull every record type out of the preserved copy: the standard tables, and the things a standard export misses — custom fields, attached documents, notes, and audit trails. Extraction runs against the snapshot, never against your live system.
Extraction Manifest
Source record counts are reconciled against extracted counts, files are checksummed, and we walk through a 50-record spot audit with you on a call — your records, chosen together, checked field by field. Your sign-off here gates the 40% validation payment.
Validation Report
Your data loads into the successor system with a field-by-field mapping you've reviewed, followed by a post-load reconciliation. We finish by finding known records together in the new system — the ones you'd check first.
Load Report
Everything that doesn't belong in the new system stays in a read-only, searchable archive — with full export available any time. The first 90 days of hosting are included with every rescue.
Your archive + credentials
After acceptance, our working copies are destroyed 30 days later and a certificate of destruction is issued. Details on the data handling page.
A rescue is mostly our work, but five things on your side keep it on schedule.
Typically 2–4 weeks end to end. Preservation and extraction are usually done in the first days; most of the calendar goes to validation, your mapping decisions, and scheduling the walkthrough and load around your practice's hours.
Typically 6–10 weeks. The extra time is rarely the extraction itself — it's the larger mapping surface, more record types to reconcile, more stakeholders in the sign-off chain, and coordinating the load window with the successor vendor's onboarding.
The rush multiplier is surge scheduling, not punishment: it covers reprioritising other engagements and working the preservation phase immediately, because once a system goes dark the options narrow fast. One thing never changes in the rush lane — validation is never compressed. The counts, the checksums, and the spot audit happen in full, every time.
Frequently, yes — it depends on what survived. If the data files still exist — a database backup, an old server, an export someone took — there is usually a path. This is exactly why the preservation copy matters: get us whatever still exists, in whatever state, and we'll tell you honestly what's recoverable before you commit to anything.
Usually not. The process is designed to work from the system itself and its underlying data files, with your admin access. Where a vendor does offer a useful export path, we'll use it — but the engagement doesn't depend on anyone else picking up the phone.
They go in the exceptions log — each one identified, with the reason it couldn't carry, in writing, before you sign off. Nothing quietly disappears. Records that can't land in the new system typically remain accessible in the archive.
One named senior engineer owns your rescue from the scoping call to delivery — the person you meet is the person doing the work. We bring in contractor surge capacity for volume when needed, but there are no handoffs and no rotating cast.
Our working copies are destroyed 30 days after you accept delivery, and we issue a certificate of destruction. What remains is what's yours: your originals, your new system, and — if you keep it — your archive.
The call, the scoping, and the quote are free. So are the export guides — even if you do it yourself.