Changing software feels risky because everything your agency knows lives inside it. In practice, much of the risk comes down to a few avoidable mistakes: leaving before you have your data, not checking what you exported, or moving in the middle of a billing period.
Here's how to avoid them, whichever system you're leaving and wherever you're going.
Before you export anything
Read your current contract and account settings first. You're looking for four things:
- Notice. How much notice you must give, and when your next payment is due.
- Access. Whether you can still log in after you cancel, and for how long.
- Exports. What you can export yourself, and what you have to ask for.
- Attached files. Whether reports, documents and other uploads are included.
Don't give notice until you've run a test export and looked at what comes out. You want the old system still open until your first month in the new one is finished.
What to export
| Data | What to check |
|---|---|
| Parents or clients | Names, emails and phone numbers. Who pays, if that isn't the same person. |
| Students | Each one linked to their parent. Year group and subjects. |
| Tutors | Contact details, subjects and what each tutor is paid. |
| Rates | What each family pays, including any special rates. |
| Upcoming lessons | Regular slots: who, when, with whom and how long. |
| Open invoices | What's unpaid today, family by family. |
| Credits and prepaid lessons | What you owe families. This is easy to miss and matters most. |
| Tutor pay not yet settled | Lessons taught but not yet paid. |
| Past reports and notes | What's worth keeping, and in what form. |
Some systems export parents and students as separate files. That's fine, but keep any ID column in both, because that's what links a child to the right family. If you delete it to tidy the file, the link has to be rebuilt from names and emails.
Test the export before you trust it
A file that opens isn't the same as a file that's right. Spend half an hour on these checks:
- Count the records. Does the number of students and tutors match what your current system shows?
- Spot-check real families. Pick some you know well, including a family with several children and one with an unusual arrangement. Follow them through the file.
- Add up the money. The unpaid invoices in your export should total the same as the outstanding figure in your current system.
- Watch out for spreadsheets changing your data. Opening a file in Excel and saving it can remove the leading zero from phone numbers and change how dates are stored. Keep an untouched copy of every export and work on a duplicate.
What usually doesn't move
It's better to expect these now than discover them later:
- Saved card details. Card numbers don't appear in a normal export. Ask your payment provider what can be moved. Otherwise, families will need to add a card again.
- Passwords. Everyone will set a new one, so plan a clear invitation.
- Message history. This often stays behind. Save anything you need to keep.
- Long lesson history. You may not need it all in the new system. An archive you can search is often enough.
Look after the personal data
You're moving personal information about families and children, so treat the exports with care. Keep them out of email where you can, limit who has them, and delete working copies when you're finished. Check whether your privacy notice needs updating to reflect the new supplier, and ask the new supplier for a data processing agreement. The Information Commissioner's Office has guidance for organisations.
Take particular care with tutor documents. Don't copy DBS certificates across simply because they're in your old system. Read the government's guidance on handling DBS certificate information first, as it covers what organisations should keep, and for how long.
Choose your date and move in order
- Run a test export and try it in the new system.
- Choose a date at the start of a billing period.
- Finish the last month in the old system: send its invoices and settle its pay run.
- Take a final export, so that nothing added since your test gets lost.
- Carry across unpaid balances, credits and prepaid lessons, and check that the totals match.
- Train the office, then tell tutors, then invite families.
- Run the first invoices and pay run in the new system, and compare them with what you'd expect.
- Save a final archive of the old system, and only then close the account.
Running the two systems side by side for that first month is what makes this calm. If something doesn't look right, you have the old figures to check against.
Questions to ask a new supplier
- Who does the import: you or them?
- Can it take your files as they are, or must you reformat them?
- What does moving across cost, and is training included?
- Can you run both systems side by side for a while?
- How do you get your data out if you ever leave?