WP Multisite Development Site and Moving to Live Site

I am new to WP and need some advice. I have a client that sells franchises, each franchise owner gets their own site under the main site. Currently there are 50 – 80 franchises. I have decided to use multisite to give each franchise owner their own site (example: http://www.companyname.com/city-st/). So here are my questions…

Test Environment?
I currently have a test directory for this client setup under my web site (example: http://www.mysite.com/dev/companyName/) this is where WP multisite is currently installed. I have a feeling this may not be the best way to do this. Does anyone have a suggestion on a better way to set this up?

My fear is that when I am creating menus I have to put the absolute path to the sites that I am linking to (example: http://www.mysite.com/dev/companyName/city-st/). This seems like it will create a lot of problems when I am ready to move this site to the customer’s server.

Moving the Site?
The next question is after deciding the best way to setup the test environment. Does anyone have suggestions or a step-by-step tutorial on how to move a multisite to a new server? Does anyone have any input on potential problems when moving the site?

Thanks!