How often should I clean Salesforce data?

Run automated hygiene checks daily. Do a manual audit of high-impact fields (revenue, stage, close date) weekly. Perform a full data quality review quarterly.

What are the most common Salesforce data quality issues?

Duplicate records, missing required fields, stale opportunity stages (no activity in 30+ days), inconsistent naming conventions, and orphaned contacts without accounts.

The Salesforce Data Hygiene Checklist Every RevOps Team Needs

Bad CRM data costs more than you think. When reps don’t trust the data, they stop entering it - creating a downward spiral that undermines forecasting, territory planning, and compensation accuracy.

Why Data Hygiene Matters
The Checklist
Automation Rules
Quarterly Audit Process
Key Takeaways

Why Data Hygiene Matters¶

Every downstream process depends on CRM data quality:

Forecasting is only as accurate as stage and close-date data
Territory assignment breaks if account addresses are wrong
Compensation disputes spike when opportunity ownership is unclear
AI tools trained on dirty data produce dirty outputs

The Checklist¶

Account Fields¶

[ ] Account Name: Standardized (no abbreviations like “Corp” vs “Corporation”)
[ ] Industry: Populated using a validated picklist, not free text
[ ] Employee Count / Revenue: Updated within the last 12 months
[ ] Account Owner: Matches current territory assignments
[ ] Billing Address: Complete and geocodable
[ ] Duplicates: Merge rate < 2% of total accounts

Contact Fields¶

[ ] Email: Valid format, not bounced
[ ] Title / Role: Populated for decision-maker contacts
[ ] Account Association: Every contact linked to an account
[ ] Last Activity Date: Flag contacts with no activity in 90+ days

Opportunity Fields¶

[ ] Stage: Updated within the last 14 days for open opps
[ ] Close Date: In the future for open opportunities
[ ] Amount: Populated and non-zero for Stage 2+
[ ] Primary Contact Role: Assigned on every opportunity
[ ] Next Steps: Populated for all open opportunities

Automation Rules¶

Implement these validation and flow rules to enforce hygiene automatically:

Required fields by stage - Block stage advancement if key fields are empty
Stale opportunity alerts - Flag opportunities with no activity in 14+ days
Duplicate detection - Enable Salesforce matching rules on Account Name + Domain
Close date push alerts - Notify managers when a close date is pushed more than twice

Quarterly Audit Process¶

Export a data quality report using your BI tool
Identify the top 10 offending fields by completeness rate
Assign field owners to each problem area
Set a 30-day remediation target
Track improvement in the next quarterly review

Key Takeaways¶

Data hygiene is a system, not a one-time project
Automate enforcement wherever possible
Make data quality visible to the whole team - dashboards, not just reports