Switch salon software without losing your booked appointments
A salon does not switch systems with an empty diary. It switches with six weeks of appointments booked in the old one. Slotora's salon account brings those appointments across from your old system's export — each with its guest, service, stylist and time — and tells your guests nothing, because they were already told.
What comes across, and how
Four imports, all in the browser, all free, all done by you in an evening.
- Your client list
- Any Excel or CSV with a header row: names, e-mail, phone, notes and tags, up to 2,000 people per file. Clients with an e-mail address are matched by it, so running the same file twice updates rather than duplicates.
- Your services and prices
- From any spreadsheet: name, length and price. Check the lengths — the booking page works out free times from them.
- Your team
- Add each person with her working hours. The appointment import matches the stylist in each row to one of them.
- Your booked appointments
- The appointments export from Fresha, Booksy, Phorest or any other system, up to two years ahead. Each future appointment lands in the right column at the right time, with its guest and service.
The move, in order
The order matters: every appointment is matched to a guest, a service and a person who already exist.
Export from the old system
Download your client list and your upcoming appointments as Excel or CSV. Check the appointment file has a date, a time, the client, the service and the staff member — and that the date is the appointment's, not the day it was booked.
Import clients, then services, then add your team
Clients and services from the import centre; each colleague with her hours on the team screen.
Bring your diary
Upload the appointment file. Slotora reads your column headers, asks which way round your dates are if the file cannot prove it, and asks you to point any stylist name it does not recognise at the right person.
Check first, write nothing
A dry run shows how many appointments would be added and which would be left out, and why: a guest who is not in your client list, a date already past, a row already in the diary. Overlaps and appointments outside someone's hours are counted for you before you commit, not refused.
Import, then switch your link
Run it for real. Then put your new booking link in your Instagram bio, on Google and on your website, and stop taking new online bookings in the old system.
Why your guests hear nothing
An imported appointment never sends a confirmation, a reminder, a text, a request for a deposit, a form or a review request — not on the day of the import and not later. Your guests were already told by the system you are leaving, and a second letter from a name they do not know is how a switch starts to look like a mistake.
The other side of that: Slotora will not remind a guest about an imported appointment either. Either leave the old system's reminders running until those appointments are past, or send your own short message. Every booking made in Slotora after the switch gets your normal confirmations and reminders.
No money comes across. The price of each appointment does; a deposit taken in the old system stays there, because Slotora can only refund money Slotora holds.
What does not come across
So you can plan for it rather than discover it:
- Past visit history — the import is a forward diary.
- Gift-card, pass and loyalty balances.
- Deposits and prepayments already taken.
- Your old booking link and your old system's reviews.
Done by you, not for you
There is no migration team: you upload the files and the screens walk you through them. Phorest and some others move your data for you, with a person. If that is what you need, it is a real reason to look at them — our version is free and takes an evening, but it is yours to do.
Questions before you switch
Which systems can I bring appointments from?
Any system that exports appointments as Excel or CSV with a header row. Fresha's and Booksy's column names are recognised automatically; for Phorest's reports or anything else, you match the columns once on screen.
Will my clients get a message from Slotora when I import?
No. Imported appointments never produce a message to a guest, now or later. New bookings made in Slotora get your normal confirmations and reminders.
Is the appointment import on the phone?
Not yet — it is in the browser, in the salon account. Once the diary is in, your team sees it in the Slotora app as usual.
Does it cost anything?
No. Every import is free, the salon account is £0 a month, and you can export everything again whenever you like.
Can I take my data with me if I leave Slotora?
Yes: clients, services and bookings as CSV, or the whole account in one file, at any time, free.
The rest of this product
The other pages about Slotora for busy salons.