Migrate from CLEAR Media ERP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

CLEAR Productions map to Dynamics 365 Projects (Jobs in Finance & Operations, Projects in Business Central) if the migration scope includes production tracking and resource planning. If Productions function primarily as client or studio entity records rather than project containers, they map to Companies in Finance & Operations or Accounts in Business Central. We confirm the primary use of Productions during scoping by reviewing the customer's Work Order-to-Production linkage patterns. The production type (feature, series, commercial) migrates as a custom text field or category on the destination record.

CLEAR Dailies represent daily footage batches linked to a Production and a shoot date. There is no direct Dailies equivalent in Dynamics 365 Finance or Business Central. We map Dailies to a custom Dailies entity in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (extensible via the customization framework) or as Project Journal Lines attached to the mapped Production Project, with the shoot date preserved as a journal date, the batch reference as a description, and the approval status as a custom picklist field. Dailies asset versions map as child records or attachments on the parent Dailies entry.

CLEAR Assets (cuts, playlists, masters, proxy files) map to SharePoint document libraries attached to the corresponding Dynamics 365 entity (Project, Company, or custom Production entity) or to Notes records with a custom asset type taxonomy. We preserve the asset metadata (format, resolution, transcoding status, approval status) as custom fields on the attachment or as a structured note. Media file pointers (URLs to cloud storage) migrate as-is; they are not media bytes transfers. We flag orphaned link risk if CLEAR cloud storage access is revoked post-migration.

CLEAR Work Orders map to Dynamics 365 Project Tasks (Finance & Operations) or Project Tasks (Business Central). Each Work Order's assignee, due date, asset reference, and description transfer as Task fields. Work Order status (pending, in-progress, completed) maps to Project Task Status. We extract the billable amount from the Work Order billing sub-system and map it as a custom financial field on the Project Task or as a line on a Project Invoice Proposal, depending on whether the destination uses Project Billing in Finance & Operations or the Job Journal billing workflow in Business Central.

CLEAR Users (internal staff and external collaborators) map to Workers in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (via Human Resources module) or to Contacts in Business Central. Email, display name, and role transfer cleanly. Permissions and access scopes are destination-specific and we map them to the closest Dynamics 365 security role. We resolve Users by email match against the destination's worker or contact table. Any CLEAR User without a match goes to a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before record import resumes.

CLEAR entity records for production clients and third-party service vendors map directly to Dynamics 365 Customers (for clients) and Vendors (for third-party services). We strip any billing-specific fields not present in the source record and flatten nested address structures. If the same entity appears as both a customer and a vendor in CLEAR (common in M&E for post-production houses that both receive and deliver work), we create both a Customer record and a Vendor record in Dynamics 365 and link them via a custom relationship field.

CLEAR Items represent deliverables, equipment, or services tracked for billing within a Production. They map to Items (Finance & Operations) or Products (Business Central), preserving unit cost and description. If Items carry a specific media type or format attribute in CLEAR, we create a custom Item Product Attribute in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations or a custom field on the Product in Business Central to preserve that taxonomy.

CLEAR Documents (contracts, briefs, approval sign-off sheets attached to Productions or Work Orders) migrate as document attachments on the corresponding Dynamics 365 entity. We extract document metadata (name, type, date, owner) and create SharePoint document library entries or Entity File Attachments. Signed approval sheets migrate as scanned PDFs or original digital documents attached to the relevant record. Document content itself is extracted where accessible; where only metadata is available, we migrate the link or reference.

CLEAR approval records exist as status flags on Dailies and Assets. We extract the approval chain (approver, timestamp, decision) as structured metadata fields on the Dailies or Asset entity rather than as standalone objects. In Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, approvals can be reconstructed as a custom approval workflow on the Project entity. We document the approval chain as a written record and recommend a Dynamics 365 Workflow or Power Automate flow to replicate the approval routing post-migration.

CLEAR does not expose a Chart of Accounts as a standalone data object. Financial ledgers are managed within the Work Order billing sub-system and are not independently exportable. We do not attempt to migrate a Chart of Accounts from CLEAR. The customer's admin provisions the Chart of Accounts in Dynamics 365 before migration, and we map Work Order billing values to the appropriate general ledger accounts during the Work Order import phase. This is explicitly disclosed during scoping.

CLEAR does not expose a treasury or bank account object. Open AP/AR balances are not stored as independent records and cannot be migrated as such. We do not migrate bank or cash account data from CLEAR. The customer's finance team provisions bank accounts in Dynamics 365 before go-live and reconciles opening balances through the standard Dynamics 365 finance opening-balance workflow.

Work Order billable amounts exist within CLEAR's closed billing sub-system. We extract the Work Order ID, billed amount, and currency as a structured export and map these to Dynamics 365 Project Invoice Proposals (Finance & Operations) or as posted Project Journal Lines (Business Central). The mapping requires the customer to confirm the appropriate general ledger accounts for revenue recognition and billing in the destination. This is a configuration step, not a code migration.