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What comes across in an export, what never does, and the order of operations that stops an awkward fortnight becoming a lost year.
7 min read · Updated September 2026
Almost everything a salon needs from its old booking software can be exported while the subscription is still live, and almost none of it can be exported afterwards. So the rule that decides how this goes is a dull one: keep paying the old platform until the new one has been checked against real clients, real appointments and a real card on file — and treat the cancellation date, not the import date, as the point of no return.
Most migrations that go badly did not go badly during the import. They went badly six weeks later, when someone needed a colour formula from last spring, or a client arrived expecting the remaining three sessions of a package that nobody carried across.
Every platform will hand you your clients. What varies is everything else, and the variation is where the cost sits.
| What you are moving | Usually exports | What tends to arrive broken |
|---|---|---|
| Client names and contact details | Yes, as a CSV | Duplicates built up over years of walk-ins |
| Appointment history | Usually | Service names that no longer match your menu |
| Future bookings | Sometimes | Recurring series, which flatten into single visits |
| Services, durations, prices | Usually | Add-ons and any conditional pricing rule |
| Staff, hours, rotas | Rarely | Anything tied to commission or payroll |
| Notes and formulas | Sometimes | Notes attached to an appointment rather than a client |
| Saved cards | Never directly | The card on file is a token held by the old processor |
| Reviews and ratings | Never | The whole history, unless the reviews live on Google |
| Memberships, packages, gift cards | Rarely | Remaining balances, which get rebuilt by hand |
Three rows deserve more than a table cell.
Saved cards. A card on file is not a card number. It is a token issued by the old platform's payment processor, and it is meaningful only to that processor. Unless both sides agree to a vault transfer — which is a compliance exercise between two companies, not a setting you can switch on — the cards stay behind. Plan to re-collect them.
Prepaid balances. Packages, memberships and gift cards are money your clients have already given you and a liability you still owe. They rarely survive an export intact. Print or export the outstanding balances before you move, keep that file, and reconcile it against the new system by hand.
Notes. Colour formulas, allergies and "do not seat near the window" are the things clients notice you losing. Whether they come across depends on where the old platform stored them. Client-level notes usually export; notes written onto an individual appointment often do not.
More than people think, and less than they fear.
History is not sentimental. It is what lets a system tell a regular from a lapsed client, and it is the input to any rebooking or win-back sequence worth running. But recent history carries most of that signal. Across 2,296 repeat visits at five salons, covering 2025-01-01 to 2026-09-14, 85.1% of them happened within sixty days of the visit before.
Own the limit: that figure counts repeat visits only. Clients who came once and never returned are not in it, so it describes the rhythm of people who do come back — not how many do. For a migration the practical reading still holds. A year of history is enough for the new platform to recognise most of your regulars' patterns, two years is comfortable, and if the export only offers twelve months you have not lost the thing that matters. Arriving with no history at all is the expensive version: the new system cannot tell a six-week client from a six-month client until it has watched a full season go by.
We wrote up where that line sits, and what to do on either side of it, in the 60-day cliff.
Sequence is most of the skill here.
If your current platform supplied the number clients dial, that number is not yours to move on a Tuesday afternoon. Porting a number between providers takes time, requires the details on the account to match exactly, and fails quietly when they do not. Start it early, never cancel the old service while a port is in flight, and do not schedule the switch for a week you cannot afford to miss calls.
Then there is who answers during the changeover. Migration weeks are the weeks a salon is least able to pick up the phone — and the phone does not ring when it is convenient. In the call logs we went through, volume peaked in the middle of the working day, which is the same window you will be spending on reconciliation. Decide in advance what catches those calls.
We move salons across as part of setup: you connect the account you use now, choose what comes over, and we load prices, durations, hours and policies for you before you check them. Data transfer is included at no charge, and your existing number keeps ringing — calls forward to the assistant rather than being ported away from you on day one. The details are on features and pricing.
If you have not chosen the destination yet, our comparison of ten platforms is the honest version, including the ones cheaper than us. And if the reason you are leaving is fees rather than features, the true cost of free salon software has the arithmetic. The side-by-side pages cover the individual platforms.
No. Client names and contact details export as a CSV from every major platform, and that file imports cleanly almost everywhere. The things at risk are the attachments to that list: saved cards, prepaid balances, reviews and appointment-level notes. Export while the old subscription is still active. After it lapses, the account usually becomes read-only and then unavailable.
Not by yourself. A card on file is a token belonging to the old platform's payment processor, not a number stored in your account. Some processors will perform a vault transfer between them, but it is arranged between the two companies and takes time. The realistic plan is to re-collect cards at checkout over the first few weeks, in person, rather than by email.
One full billing cycle after you go live, at minimum. Running both systems in parallel is what makes every other mistake recoverable, and the cost of that overlap is far less than the cost of discovering in week three that appointment notes never came across.
A year is enough for most salons and two is comfortable. Across 2,296 repeat visits at five salons, 85.1% happened within sixty days of the previous visit, so recent history carries most of the signal about a client's rhythm. That figure covers repeat visits only, and says nothing about clients who never returned.
Usually, but not instantly. If the number was supplied by your current platform it has to be ported, which takes time and fails if the account details do not match exactly. Start the port before you cancel anything, and consider forwarding to the new system as an interim step so the number keeps working throughout.
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