What should I export before cancelling my old rota software?

Export the staff list with contact details, roles, contracted hours and pay rates, plus holiday entitlement with accrued and taken balances. Also take standing availability, absence and sickness records, and historic timesheets or hours worked. Save a CSV or PDF copy of each and write down where it is stored.

How long do I need to keep old timesheets and holiday records?

It depends on the record. In Great Britain, Acas says that from 6 April 2026 employers must keep holiday and holiday pay records for at least 6 years from when they were made. National minimum wage records are generally kept for at least 6 years, and working time records for 2 years. Check the Acas and GOV.UK pages for your situation.

Can I move holiday balances part-way through the year?

Yes. Holiday is tracked by date, so you can enter each person's entitlement, hours accrued and days taken up to the switch date as opening balances. Check every balance against the old system before anyone books time off. Keep the old export as your record of how each figure was reached.

Should I switch at the start of a pay period or the tax year?

Start of a pay period is the practical choice, because hours and wage cost then line up cleanly between old and new. You do not need to wait for the tax year. Avoid a bank holiday week or your busiest trading week, and tell staff the date well ahead.

Do I have to tell staff what data a new clock-in app collects?

Yes. The ICO says workers should know what personal information is collected about them, and that includes timekeeping data. Tell them what is recorded, why, and who can see it. If you use fingerprint or face clock-in, you need a feasible alternative such as a PIN and an impact assessment.

Can I run two rota systems for a week?

Yes, and it is the safest way to switch. Build the week in the new tool, let staff clock in there, and keep the old system or a paper sheet as backup. Compare hours and wage cost line by line before payroll, and cut over only when the totals match.

What happens to my old data when I cancel?

Vendors keep or delete it on their own schedule, so do not rely on them to hold it for you. Export everything you might need before you cancel, check the files open properly, and store them securely. Cancel only after the parallel week and your first clean payroll.

Switching rota software without losing a week to admin

Quick answer. Export your staff list, pay rates, holiday balances, availability and historic hours before you touch anything. Move only what you need to run the next few months. Then run one full week in both systems, compare hours and wage cost line by line, and cut over at the start of a pay period once the totals match.

Switching rota tool sounds like a month of data entry. It usually is not, if you decide early what really has to move and what can sit in an archive. The risk is not the typing. It is cancelling the old system, then finding out in March that you cannot show how someone's holiday balance was worked out.

This guide works for a paid rota app, a spreadsheet or a paper diary. The steps are the same.

What do I need to export first?

Do this before you sign up for anything, and certainly before you cancel. Once the old subscription lapses, getting data back can range from awkward to impossible.

Pull out these records:

Staff list. Names, contact details, roles, contracted hours and pay rates.
Holiday. Entitlement, hours accrued and days taken, for each person, up to today.
Availability and standing patterns. Who cannot do Sundays, who always closes on Thursday, who is at college on Mondays.
Historic hours. Timesheets or clock-in data showing hours actually worked, including overtime and absences.
Absence and sickness. Dates and type, so your records carry over.

Save each as a CSV or Excel file where you can, and as a PDF too. A PDF is no use for importing, but it is a fixed copy that opens on any computer in five years. Put everything in one folder, name the files with dates, and write down where the folder lives.

If you run on paper, this is the moment to photograph or scan the last few months of timesheets and the holiday book. Ten minutes now beats a hunt later.

Most rota tools accept a CSV or Excel import for the staff list, and many will help with onboarding if you ask. Treat vendor guides as practical tips only. The rules on what you must keep come from Acas, GOV.UK and the ICO, covered below.

What actually needs migrating?

Less than you think. A sensible split:

Move into the new system

Current staff, with roles, rates and contracted hours
Opening holiday balances as at the switch date
Standing availability and any regular patterns
Your shift templates that you still use

Archive, do not migrate

Old rotas beyond the last few weeks
Historic timesheets (keep the export, do not retype them)
Templates nobody has touched in a year

Think twice about keeping

Data on people who left, with no reason to hold it

That last one is a data protection point. The ICO says there is no fixed retention period for personal data. You have to justify keeping it by its purpose, and it suggests reviewing an employee's data when they leave and deleting what you are unlikely to need. A switch is a good prompt to do that tidy-up, but check the retention rules below before you delete anything.

How long do I keep the old records?

There is no single "keep everything for X years" answer. Different records have different clocks. As a starting point for Great Britain:

Record	Roughly how long	Source
Annual leave and holiday pay, including carried over holiday	At least 6 years from when the record was made, for records from 6 April 2026	Acas
Records showing national minimum wage compliance	At least 6 years, for records created on or after 1 April 2021	GOV.UK
Working time records	2 years from the date made	Acas

The holiday rule is current at the time of writing. Acas updated its page on 22 April 2026, and its guidance on irregular-hours and part-year workers is worth reading if you employ them. Do not assume it tells you what applied to earlier records, and check the Acas page rather than this one. The working time page was last updated 21 March 2025. The GOV.UK national minimum wage guidance is current as of 6 October 2026.

Two practical points from the GOV.UK page. Records can be on paper or on a computer, but you must be able to produce them for a single pay reference period in a single document. And inadequate records can bring serious consequences, so do not treat this as optional.

National minimum wage records usually come out of payroll: total pay, total hours worked including absences and overtime, and agreements on hours and pay. So even if you never open the old system again, keep an export of hours worked.

Holiday balances matter for another reason. Irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue holiday at 12.07% of hours worked in a pay period, and Acas bases their holiday pay on average pay over a previous period. An old system's accrued and taken figures are real records, not scrap.

Northern Ireland has its own rules. Readers there should check nidirect.

How do I run one week in parallel?

This is the part that stops the switch turning into a bad payday. You are not committing yet. You are checking the new system gives the same answer as the old one.

Before the week

Import the staff list and check every pay rate and contracted-hours figure by eye.
Enter opening holiday balances and compare each one against the old export.
Build next week's rota in the new tool, from your existing patterns.
Tell staff what is happening, what the app records and how to clock in.

During the week

Staff clock in on the new tool. Keep the old system, or a simple paper sheet at the door, running as backup. Yes, it is double work for a few days. That is the point.

Pick one person as the switch champion. Not necessarily the manager. Someone on the floor who is happy to show a colleague where to tap, and who will tell you when something is confusing.

After the week

Before you run payroll, sit down with both sets of numbers and compare:

Hours worked per person
Break deductions, if you apply any
Overtime
Total wage cost for the week

Go line by line. A small mismatch is nearly always a setup issue, like a rate entered wrongly or a shift that rounds differently. Fix it and check again. Cut over only when the totals match.

It is also a good moment to check the new rota against the working time basics: 48 hours averaged over 17 weeks, and for under-18s a maximum of 8 hours a day and 40 a week. These limits are on the GOV.UK maximum weekly working hours page, current as of 6 October 2026. Our guide to rest breaks and rota rules for small shift teams covers the rest.

When should I cut over?

Choose the start of a pay period or the start of a week, so hours and wage cost split cleanly. You do not need to wait for the tax year.

Avoid:

A bank holiday week
Your busiest trading week
The week the manager is on holiday

Give staff the date at least a couple of weeks ahead. People take it badly when the way they clock in changes overnight, and they take it well when they have had a go beforehand.

What do I tell staff about their data?

A clock-in app collects personal information, including times worked. The ICO says workers must know what is collected, and timekeeping is part of that. A short note is enough: what the app records, why, who can see it, and how long you keep it.

If you are considering fingerprint or face clock-in, be careful. The ICO expects a feasible alternative, such as a PIN, and an impact assessment. Its monitoring guidance is under review at the time of writing, so check the current version. For most small teams a PIN is simpler and avoids the question altogether.

Closing down the old system

Do this last, and in this order:

Confirm the export is complete, and that the files actually open.
Store the archive somewhere secure, with limited access.
Run your first full pay period on the new system.
Only then cancel the old subscription.

That order means you never have a gap. If something is wrong in week three, the old data is still there.

Where Wavro fits

If you are weighing up a move, Wavro keeps clock-in data alongside the rota, which makes the parallel week easy to compare. You can look around the live demo without an account, and see the pricing before you decide anything.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Record-keeping rules differ by nation and by situation, so take advice on your own circumstances.