Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing Your Salesforce Data

Your data is only as valuable as it is reliable, and that’s especially true of the information you rely on to manage your relationships with your customers. Dependable, accurate information in your Salesforce org is mission-critical. Achieving this requires proactive data management.

Failure to validate your CRM data exposes you to the risks of dated, redundant, duplicate, incomplete, or incorrect records. In the worst-case scenario, some of these issues could pose compliance risks.

The good news is it’s easy to avoid these issues. To guarantee your data integrity and prevent expensive disruptions in workflow, conduct regular and comprehensive Salesforce data audits. Not only will this guarantee your Salesforce CRM data is in optimal shape, but it will also provide more complete and accurate information, which can result in increased profitability.

Here are the seven steps you need to successfully audit and maintain your Salesforce data.

Step 1: Define the Scope of Your Audit

The first best practice for a successful audit in Salesforce is to know what you’re working with. That means taking rigorous and well-defined steps to determine the scope of your data. 

Note any and all data fields that are populated by essential customer-identifying information, such as account and contact data, callbacks, leads, and other opportunities. Identify any information a member of your team might need to successfully complete their assignments.

Once you’ve defined the scope of the data you’ll be auditing, make sure your data is compliant with all relevant laws and regulations. Check all of the pertinent data against compliance requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, and record and address any discrepancies.

Step 2: Secure and Back Up Your Salesforce Data

Once you’ve comprehensively identified the Salesforce CRM data you’ll be working with, make sure to create a backup before proceeding with any further work. Keep that backup in cloud storage for increased security.

You can create backups easily from within Salesforce using one of several different methods. For on-demand, up-to-the-minute backups, there’s the Data Loader function. Automated Weekly Exports can provide a good baseline for dataset security. For more complex or customized backups, a third-party or API solution may be the best option.

Once you’ve created and verified your backup, you can move on to data correction.

Step 3: Clean and Standardize Your Data

With a complete backed-up data set, you can begin to clean and standardize your data. Look for any duplicate or redundant records, outdated or deprecated data, or other non-standard records.

Make sure that all records are populated correctly with complete and accurate data in the appropriate field and that data formats like dates, addresses, and other contact information are standardized.

Normalizing the data in this way not only serves to make it more accurate, complete, and reliable but also makes it easier for your customer relation teams to retrieve and use all of the information available to them in the Salesforce field audit trail. 

Step 4: Analyze Data Quality and Security

With your dataset indexed, cleaned, and standardized, you can then move on to verifying its integrity. You want to make sure that the data is both secure and consistent. Any incorrect, inconsistent, or missing information could reduce the effectiveness and accuracy of further analysis. 

Examine data security, including file access and permissions settings applicable to sensitive information. Look for outdated or deprecated records that can safely be archived or deleted.

It’s worth noting that Salesforce Audit Trail can be used to track administrative changes and verify data integrity during this phase of the process. For more detailed tracking of changes to key fields, you can enable Field History Tracking to monitor updates and maintain a comprehensive record of data changes.

Step 5: Prioritize Issues and Develop a Remediation Plan

If you run into any issues in your audit of Salesforce data, you’ll need to prioritize. List and evaluate all issues you have identified in terms of their immediate impact on your day-to-day operations. Making sure the truly critical problems are addressed first will minimize downtime.

Assign the appropriate staff to handle any discrepancies, errors, or other issues requiring attention. Once business-critical functionality has been restored, implementing data validation rules can guard against these errors. Audit reports in Salesforce make it easy to keep track of these errors and the corresponding remediation efforts.

Step 6: Implement Fixes and Optimize Data Management

Once you’ve developed a plan to address priority issues, put it into action. Make the necessary data corrections and put plans in place to reduce or eliminate the possibility that these problems will recur. If required, modify existing business processes in order to standardize data entry and management. To make things significantly easier, Salesforce provides automation capabilities that free staff from repetitive or time-intensive data cleanup efforts.

Your Salesforce CRM data isn’t static; it changes frequently. To make sure your data stays accurate, complete, and reliable, leverage Salesforce’s Field Audit Trail where needed. By developing a baseline over time, you can identify and remedy any issues much more easily. This goes a long way toward guaranteeing continuous data integrity and uninterrupted, efficient operations.

Step 7: Monitor and Maintain Data Quality

A regular, scheduled audit process is the first part of an ongoing data quality verification effort. Monitoring and maintaining data integrity is an ongoing process that should be conducted routinely by trained staff familiar with the procedure. With an established, routine audit, you can rely on these periodic checks to guarantee a baseline of excellent data quality.

While monthly audits may be appropriate for large Salesforce CRM datasets, quarterly audits may be all that smaller datasets require. The frequency should reflect the nature of your business and how often your Salesforce CRM data changes. Your organization should use the interval best suited for your use cases to safeguard and maintain your data integrity.

The reports and dashboards available from within Salesforce can help you keep an eye on all of your critical data health metrics. It’s also worth noting that you can set Salesforce alerts that respond to essential issues of quality with immediate action.

To further protect your payment data, we recommend reviewing our Guide to PCI Compliance in Salesforce with Chargent, which offers valuable tips for ensuring security and compliance.

Salesforce Data Audit Expertise

Your Salesforce data is crucial to your core business processes, and ensuring that it is accurate, complete, and protected is the best path forward in preventing expensive downtime and decreased productivity.

Anything that puts the accuracy, quality, or integrity of your data at risk is an unacceptable hazard. Regular Salesforce data audits are all you need to make sure your data keeps working for you — rather than against you.

If your organization is expanding or looking to consolidate payment data within Salesforce, now is the time to explore your options. Moving your payment data into Salesforce can enhance visibility, improve reporting, and drive efficiency across your operations. Contact our sales team to learn more about how this transition can benefit your business.