How to move your time tracking history to a new tool

Firms put off switching time tracking tools for one reason: years of history. Old projects are how you estimate new ones, past invoices answer client questions, and rate history explains last year's margins. Moving that history carefully is what makes a switch safe. This checklist works whichever tools you're moving between.

1. Take an inventory

Before exporting anything, write down what you have, with counts. You'll use this list to check the result:

• Clients and contacts
• Projects, including archived ones, with budgets, billing type and fixed fees
• Tasks and which projects use them
• People, including those who have left, with roles
• Billable and cost rates at every level, and when they changed
• Time entries, from the very first one
• Invoices with their lines, taxes, discounts and payments
• Estimates and expenses, if you use them

Also note a few control totals from the old tool: hours per project for the last year, hours per person, and the total invoiced per client. They're your proof that nothing was lost.

2. Export more than you think you need

CSV exports from reports are often summaries, not the raw data, and they rarely include rate history or invoice lines. Prefer, in this order: a direct import that reads the old tool's API, a full account export, and only then report exports. Keep a complete copy of the old data, even if you never plan to open it.

3. Plan the cutover

1. Choose a cutover date, ideally right after an invoicing run, so there's little unbilled time in flight.
2. Import everything up to that date into the new tool, and check it (step 4) while the team keeps using the old one.
3. On the cutover day, import the last few days again, or enter them by hand, and switch everyone over.
4. Keep the old tool read-only for a month or two, then close it once the first invoices from the new tool have gone out.

4. Verify the totals

Compare your control totals from step 1 with the same reports in the new tool:

• Hours per project and per person for the same period
• Total invoiced and paid per client
• Number of clients, projects, people and invoices
• A handful of individual entries checked by hand: date, person, task, hours, rate and note

Small differences usually have mundane causes: time zones moving an entry across midnight, rounding, or entries in projects that were deleted rather than archived. Each one should be explained, not ignored.

5. Bring the team along

Invite people only once the data is in, so they see their own history from day one. Show them the one view they'll use most (a timer or a weekly grid) and leave the rest for later. A week of slightly messy timesheets is normal; a month means the setup needs simplifying.

Moving to LockedHours

If you're coming from Harvest, LockedHours reads your account through Harvest's API with a token you create, and brings across clients, projects, tasks, people, rates, time entries, invoices and payments that the token can read. When it finishes, it compares hours per project and person, and totals billed per client, with Harvest, and lists any difference. Details are on the import page.

Coming from somewhere else? You can start with an empty account and set up clients, projects and rates in a few minutes. Every report works the same for imported and new data.