All guides · Published September 6, 2026 · 3 min read

Switching studio software without losing your clients’ credits

Fear of losing clients’ credits holds back more studios than price does. It is justified, and it is solved with a method. Here it is, in order.

Disclosure: this guide is written by the team behind Ritmello, a studio management platform. We have that bias, and we make up for it with figures you can check yourself.

What must survive, and what can stay behind

Three things must move from one software to the next without loss: your clients, their current passes with the exact number of remaining credits and the expiry date, and their memberships with the next renewal date. Everything else is comfortable but not vital: attendance history, old exhausted passes, notes.

The key to all of it is the email address. A client is recognised by their email from one system to the next. Before exporting anything, fix missing or duplicate emails in your current software: that is the only manual work a migration truly requires.

Step 1: export, even if the button is well hidden

Every established platform lets you export the client list as CSV, sometimes under reports rather than settings. Then look for an export of active passes or packages: that is the one holding the remaining credits. If you cannot find it, ask support in writing; you are entitled to your data.

One file per subject is enough: one for clients (name, email, phone), one for credits (email, pass name, credits remaining, expiry date). Column order and header language do not matter.

Step 2: import with a preview, never blind

A good import shows what it will create before creating it: how many clients, which rows will be skipped and why (invalid email, empty line, duplicate). Refuse any tool that writes straight into your database without that step. A column mistake is spotted in ten seconds in a preview; it takes a day to undo once written.

Re-running an import must be safe. If your file was incomplete and you send it a second time, no client should appear twice: the email is the key, and an existing client is simply recognised.

The fake-payment trap

An imported pass was not sold in the new software: it was sold three months ago in the old one. If it is recorded as a sale at its normal price, your revenue reports for the migration month inflate artificially, and you declare revenue you never collected.

The right method records the imported pass at zero, with no payment entry, flagged as coming from a migration. The client keeps their exact credits, and your reports stay true.

Step 3: pick the moment, and tell people

Migrate on a Sunday evening or during a quiet week, never the day before a busy season starts. Keep the old software in read-only mode for a week, long enough to check three or four clients at random: are their credits right, is their next class there.

Tell your clients the day before, in two sentences. Here is a message that works:

“From Monday, bookings go through our new page: [address]. Your credits and membership are already there. Nothing to create, no password: your email is enough.”

How it works at Ritmello

The import lives under Settings, “Import data”. You drop a CSV file, the tool recognises columns in French or English, shows you the preview and the rows it will skip, and creates nothing before you confirm. Imported passes are recorded at zero price with no fake payment, and re-running an import never creates duplicates.

If you would rather not touch it, send us your files: we do the migration for you, free, and you approve the preview before anything is created.

Also read: Choosing software for your Pilates or yoga studio: seven questions before you sign · What a commission on your own clients really costs