Migrate from SellingLane CRM to Zoho CRM

SellingLane Buyer records migrate to Zoho CRM Contacts. We preserve bidder ID, registration date, and verification status as custom fields. Bidder tier or standing (Approved, Pending, Suspended) maps to a custom picklist field in Zoho. The buyer email serves as the dedupe key during import. Custom fields discovered during the audit phase (including any deprecated or deleted definitions in SellingLane) are flagged and resolved against live Buyer records before field creation in Zoho.

SellingLane Lots carry lot number, item description, reserve price, starting bid, and custom lot-specific attributes. We map lot number to Product Name and preserve reserve price and starting bid as numeric custom fields in Zoho. If the customer uses multiple auction catalogs per year, we evaluate creating a custom Auction Lot module with a lookup to a parent Auction Event custom record rather than relying solely on Zoho's Products, which assumes inventory rather than catalog items. Reserve-status logic does not transfer automatically; we flag it for admin configuration in Zoho.

SellingLane Bid records link a Buyer to a Lot and carry timestamp, amount, and bid type (floor, absentee, online). Zoho CRM has no native bid record object, so we reconstruct the bid stack using Deals with a custom bid table as line items or as a separate custom Bid Record module with lookups to Contact (Buyer) and Product (Lot). Bid ordering is validated against the original timestamp to ensure the bid stack sequence is accurate. The migration is sequenced so that Contacts and Products load before Deals so that lookup references are satisfied at insert time.

SellingLane Auction Events group Lots and Bids by sale date, location, and catalog. Zoho CRM has no native Auction Event object. We create a custom Auction module (Zoho auto-creates modules for files named with a _C suffix, e.g., AuctionEvents_C.csv) with fields for event name, sale date, location, and catalog reference, and link Lots and Bids via lookup fields. During scoping, the customer chooses between a full event reconstruction or treating Lots as independent catalog items with event metadata stored as date-range fields on each Lot record.

Registration records include buyer ID, event ID, registration date, and payment method on file. We map these to Zoho Tasks with the Contact linked via WhoId, or to a custom Registration module if the customer requires a full audit trail of buyer registrations. The auction event reference maps to the custom Auction module lookup. Registration date transfers as Activity Date on the Task or as a custom date field on the Registration module.

Post-sale payment records include amount, method, date, and buyer association. We map these to Zoho Deals as closed-won records with payment amount, payment method, and trust-account balance carried as custom fields. If the customer uses Zoho Books for accounting, we map payment records to invoice objects in Zoho Books via the native integration rather than storing them as Deals, which avoids duplicate records across the CRM and accounting layers.

SellingLane tracks buyer trust-account balances for auction compliance. This custom financial field maps to a custom numeric field on the Zoho Contact record (preferred) or on a Deal record for post-sale settlement tracking. We flag any buyer with a negative trust balance as a custom status field and alert the customer if any balance reflects a deprecated currency format from SellingLane.

SellingLane staff assigned as lot owners or bidder managers map to Zoho CRM Users. We resolve owners by email match against the Zoho destination org's User table. Any SellingLane Owner without a matching Zoho User goes to a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before record import resumes. Inactive SellingLane owners map to inactive Zoho Users to preserve historical assignment without triggering active-seat licensing.

SellingLane tags and labels on Lots and Buyers migrate to Zoho Tags or to custom multi-select picklist fields depending on how the customer uses them. Classification tags that drive filtering migrate to picklists for native Zoho filtering support. Loose classification tags migrate as Zoho Tags. Tag-based automations in SellingLane do not transfer and are documented in the automation inventory for rebuild in Zoho Workflows.

Item photos, condition reports, and registration documents attach to Lots and Buyers in SellingLane. We export attachments via the platform's file storage and re-associate them in Zoho CRM using a naming convention that matches the parent record ID. Zoho CRM's attachment handling uses Zoho WorkDrive integration; we ensure the WorkDrive connection is active before migration and that the attachment file size does not exceed Zoho's 50 MB per-file limit. Files exceeding this limit are flagged for the customer's admin to host externally and link via URL.

SellingLane supports custom fields on auction listings but the schema is not publicly documented. We discover custom field definitions during the audit phase by querying the platform's field configuration endpoint, then generate a complete field manifest before creating the equivalent custom fields in Zoho. Any custom field with a deprecated or deleted definition in SellingLane can silently drop values; we cross-reference every custom field against live Lot records to confirm data completeness before committing the migration.

SellingLane uses auction-specific workflow stages (Registered, Won, Lost, Paid, Closed). We map these to Zoho CRM Deal stages. If multiple auction events use different stage sets, we configure multiple Zoho Sales Processes or use a custom picklist field to preserve the event-specific stage context. Any stage with a custom automation trigger in SellingLane is flagged in the automation inventory.