How to switch field service software without losing a week

When the office spends more time working around the software than working in it. The signs are usually the same: spreadsheets on the side, things kept in someone's head, and work that falls through the cracks once more than one person shares it.

• Several office people answer the same inbox and nobody can tell who has what.
• You can't see how fast new leads get answered.
• Recurring work lives on a paper list because the plans in your software are too rigid.
• Quotes can't show options side by side, so the office types the same quote three times.
• You don't know which jobs make money, only which ones bring in revenue.
• Prices, add-ons and paid features keep rising without the software getting better for your trade.

Export everything you can, as spreadsheet (CSV or Excel) files, before you cancel anything. Customers and their addresses matter most, then your price list, then history: jobs, estimates, invoices and open balances.

Plan on two to four weeks from the first export to the day you stop using the old system. Here is the order that avoids redoing work.

1. Pick a cutover date in a quieter week (not the first warm week of spring). Count back three weeks.
2. Export everything (the table above) and save the files somewhere safe, with the date in the file name.
3. Clean the customer list once: merge duplicates, fix phone formats, remove test records, mark commercial customers and HOAs.
4. Set up the new system's basics: company details, office hours, crews, roles and the price list.
5. Test the import with the real files and check a sample of 20 customers by hand: name, phone, every address, tags, balance.
6. Start any phone-number or texting registration early. Business texting in the US needs brand and campaign registration, which can take a week or more.
7. Train the office and crews on the few screens they use every day, not every feature.
8. Run both systems side by side for a short, fixed time (one to two weeks): new work in the new system, the old one read-only for lookups.
9. Cut over: import the final changes, move open jobs and plan visits, send the first invoices from the new system.
10. Keep the old account read-only for a month or two if you can, then download a final export before you cancel.

Fix the problems that will bother you every day in the new system, and leave the rest. Duplicates, phone numbers and addresses are worth the time; perfect tags are not.

• Duplicates: the same person with two records (often one from a web form and one typed by the office). Match on phone and email.
• Phone numbers: one format, mobile in the mobile column. Texting depends on it.
• Addresses: one property per service address; billing addresses kept separate for HOAs and property managers.
• Customer type: mark commercial and HOA customers so they get the right prices and payment terms.
• Opt-outs: carry over anyone who asked not to receive texts or emails. Don't let a switch restart messages to them.
• Old prices: archive services you no longer sell rather than importing them as active.

Check the import, your daily screens and the exit. A system that is easy to get into but hard to get out of is a risk for the next switch.

Make a list of everything in flight on the cutover date and move each kind on purpose. History can come in by import; open work needs a person to check it.

Pick a cutover moment (for example, Friday at 5 PM) after which nothing new goes into the old system. Anything created before it is on the list above; anything after it is born in the new system.

Pick one champion in the office, train on the five things each role does daily, and set a date after which the old system is read-only. Two systems in use "for a while" is how a switch fails.

• The office: new leads, quotes, scheduling, messages, invoices.
• Sales reps: their leads, quote building, appointments.
• Crews: today's jobs, on my way, checklists, sign-off, notes, time.
• The owner: the dashboard and the few reports that matter (close rate, speed to lead, margins).

Tell customers only what changes for them: a new look on quotes and invoices, maybe a new link to book. Most will not notice anything else.

• Cancelling the old software before exporting. Some exports stop working the day an account closes.
• Switching in the busiest month. The office has no time to learn.
• Importing without checking a sample. One wrong column (mobile vs home phone) affects every customer.
• Forgetting open work: scheduled jobs, unsigned quotes, unpaid invoices and next plan visits.
• Starting texting registration too late. Customers can't get texts from the new number until it is approved.
• No end date for the old system. People keep using what they know.

• The import takes spreadsheet exports for customers (including customers with several addresses), your price list, past jobs, past estimates, and invoices with their balances.
• It guesses each column from the header names, and you fix any guess before anything is imported.
• A check runs first and shows what will come in, what is a duplicate and what is wrong, row by row. After an import, you can undo it.
• Imported balances show on the customer record, so nobody loses track of who owes what.
• Texting registration is part of setup; texts run in a test mode until the company's number is approved.
• Two-factor sign-in, and roles that let a sales rep see only their own leads.
• Accounts are opened by hand while Birdy is in early access. See switching to Birdy for what moves across.