How to Switch Practice Management Software

When switching is worth the effort

Changing practice management software is disruptive, so most practices put it off too long. The signs that it is time are usually visible in month-end, not in the software itself.

• The spreadsheet is the real system. Fees, forecasts or resource plans live in Excel because the software cannot produce them.
• Month-end takes days. Invoices are built by hand from timesheet exports.
• Overruns are found late. Nobody can see fee used against progress until a stage is invoiced.
• People avoid timesheets. The tool is slow or confusing, so time is logged late and guessed.
• The vendor is moving you anyway. An end-of-life notice or forced upgrade means a migration is coming regardless. See Deltek Vision end of life.
• Information lives in too many places. Time and fees are in one system, the drawings, specification and decisions for the same project in several others.

Decide what moves, what is archived and what is left

The single biggest decision in a migration is scope. Moving everything is slow and imports every old mistake. Move what the practice needs to run and bill live work.

Timesheet history: how much is enough?

For live projects, bring every hour already booked so that fee burn starts from the right point. For closed projects, a summary of actual hours by stage is often more useful than the raw entries, because it is what you will use to price similar work. Keep the full detail in the archive.

Pick the cutover date carefully

The cutover date is the point where the new system becomes the record. Choose it so that invoices, WIP and timesheets can be reconciled cleanly on both sides.

Best

A month end that is also a VAT quarter end, so the last return from the old system is self-contained.

Good

Any month end, after that month's invoices are raised in the old system.

Avoid

The financial year end, when the accountants need a stable system.

Avoid

Weeks with a major tender issue, planning submission or holiday period.

A six-week switch plan

For a small or mid-sized practice, six weeks from signed contract to live system is realistic, provided someone owns the clean-up and the directors make decisions quickly.

Keep the accounting system where it is

Most practices keep Xero, QuickBooks, Sage or FreeAgent through the switch. Only the project, time and billing side moves. Agree early which system owns invoices, which owns payments and how the two stay in sync, so the accountants are not surprised at the next month end.

The sign-off gate before you switch off the old system

Do not set the old system to read-only until every item below is true. Each one is cheap to check now and expensive to discover in three months.

• ✓Every live project exists with the right stages, fees and budgets.
• ✓Hours to date per live stage match the old system within an agreed tolerance.
• ✓Open invoices and unbilled WIP reconcile to the accounts.
• ✓Charge-out and cost rates are correct for every person.
• ✓Two weeks of parallel timesheets agree in both systems.
• ✓The first invoice run in the new system has been checked by finance.
• ✓The archive export opens and can be searched.

Questions practices ask

Short answers for practice managers planning a move.

How long does it take to switch?

For a small or mid-sized practice, four to eight weeks. Most of that time goes on cleaning data and running both systems in parallel, not on moving the data itself.

What data should we migrate?

Live projects with stages, fees and budgets, staff and rates, clients and contacts, open invoices and unbilled WIP, and timesheet history for live projects. Archive closed projects as a read-only export.

When is the best time to switch?

At a month end, ideally a VAT quarter end, away from the financial year end and major project deadlines.

Can we keep Xero?

Usually yes. Most architecture practice management tools integrate with Xero and other accounting packages, so only the project, time and billing side moves.

Who should own the switch?

One named person with authority to make clean-up decisions, usually the practice manager or an operations director, backed by a director who signs off scope and the final gate.

Where Avoice fits

When considering Avoice, agree the migration scope, responsibilities, timescale and any costs with Avoice before committing.

Once live, projects carry their stages and fees, timesheets roll up against each stage, invoices sync with Xero and QuickBooks through financials and cash flow, and people and staffing shows capacity across live work. The specification, drawing QA, contract administration and compliance registers sit in the same project, so moving to Avoice can retire more than one system at once.

If you are weighing a switch, read our buyer's guide to project management software or book a demo with one of your live projects.