Prophet 21 Data Cleanup Checklist (Free, PDF)

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12 critical items still open - these are the highest-risk gaps.

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1. Item master

Identify items with no sales, purchases or inventory movement in a defined period, such as 24 monthsCRITICALMark obsolete items inactive instead of deleting, preserving historyFind duplicate items with the same manufacturer part number or UPCCRITICALCheck for missing or inconsistent units of measure and conversion factorsCRITICALVerify product group, class and commodity assignments are populatedReview items with zero cost, zero price or negative marginCheck descriptions for typos and consistent naming conventions

2. Customers and ship-tos

Find duplicate customer accounts by name, address, phone and tax IDCRITICALInactivate customers with no orders in a defined period and no open balanceValidate tax status, exemption certificates and expiry datesCRITICALCheck credit limits, terms and credit holds against current policyVerify ship-to addresses, including postal codes and delivery routesConfirm customer class and salesperson assignments are currentRemove or merge contacts with bounced or missing email addresses

3. Vendors and purchasing

Find duplicate vendors and vendors sharing the same bank account or tax IDCRITICALInactivate vendors with no activity and no open balanceCheck payment terms, remit-to addresses and 1099 or tax reporting flagsCRITICALReview vendor lead times against actual receipt historyVerify item to vendor cross references and buy multiplesClear stale open purchase orders and lines

4. Pricing and costs

List price rules that have expired, overlap or are never usedCRITICALCheck for rules that produce below-cost or negative margin pricesCRITICALVerify cost basis consistency across product groupsRetire single-customer rules that duplicate a class ruleConfirm contract prices have owners and end dates

5. Inventory and open documents

Investigate negative on-hand quantities and fix their causesCRITICALClear stale open sales orders, quotes and back ordersResolve unposted receipts, returns and transfers in transitReview bin and location records for orphan or unused locationsCheck replenishment parameters for items that never reorder or never stopReconcile inventory valuation to the general ledgerCRITICAL

6. Governance

Assign a data owner for items, customers, vendors and pricingCRITICALWrite naming and creation standards so the mess does not returnRestrict who can create or change master recordsSchedule recurring data quality reports and review them monthlyTake a backup before any bulk change and keep a change log

Critical items affect money, compliance or integrations. Fix those first. Keep a log of every mass change, and test bulk updates in a test copy before touching production.

Master data quality scan

Optional: share anonymized exports and we will outline duplicate, stale and inconsistent records for your team to review.

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How to use the checklist

Work through each master data area, ticking items as you complete them. Start with the critical items because they affect money, tax or integrations. Define your thresholds up front, such as how long without activity makes an item or customer inactive. Run each check as a query or report against a test copy, review the results with the business owner, and only then make changes in production. Export the completed list as evidence for your project file.

Inactivate, do not delete

Deleting records usually breaks history and may not even be allowed once transactions exist. Marking items, customers and vendors inactive removes them from daily screens and lookups while keeping history intact for reporting and audit. Merging duplicates is different: it typically needs a controlled process, a backup, and a clear survivor record. Always keep a cross reference of the old and new identifiers so you can trace past documents.

Data that hurts most

Not all dirty data costs the same. Wrong units of measure and conversion factors misstate inventory and cost. Missing or expired tax exemption certificates create compliance exposure. Duplicate vendors with the same bank details can lead to duplicate payments. Overlapping price rules cause quotes that differ depending on who enters them. Prioritize those before cosmetic fixes like description typos.

Units of measure and conversions
Tax and exemption data
Duplicate vendors and bank details
Overlapping or expired price rules
Negative on-hand quantities

Common mistakes

Running mass updates directly in production without a backup is the riskiest. Cleaning once and never again guarantees the problem returns, so put governance in place. Another mistake is cleaning without the business: only the salespeople know which customers are truly dead, and only buyers know which items are seasonal. Finally, do not forget downstream systems, since a fixed item number may still be wrong in your ecommerce or EDI mappings.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I decide an item is obsolete?

Set a period with the business, such as 18 to 24 months with no sales, purchases or movement, and exclude seasonal and service parts. Flag candidates, have buyers review them, and inactivate rather than delete to preserve history.

Can I merge duplicate customers?

Often, but the process depends on your system and how much history exists. Plan it carefully, take a backup, choose a surviving record, move or reference open documents, and test in a copy first.

How often should I clean data?

Run light data quality checks monthly and a deeper review annually or before major projects. Governance, such as creation standards and restricted access, matters more than one-off cleanups.

Why clean before an upgrade?

Bad data slows testing, creates confusing results, and is expensive to move. Cleaning first reduces what you must test and migrate, and makes problems that remain easier to spot.

If you want duplicate and stale record candidates found automatically in your ERP data, we can build a read-only analysis that produces a review list for your data owners.

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Prophet 21 Data Cleanup Checklist