If you've been running your business on another platform (or juggling several), you can bring your existing clients, contracts, and invoices into Dubsado so everything lives in one place. This guide walks you through the migration in the recommended order, and each step links to a detailed how-to article.

This guide is built for an established business moving its clients, contracts, and invoices over from another system, not for someone setting up Dubsado for the first time. Working through the steps in order gets you the best results, since later steps build on the projects and templates you set up early on.

The migration breaks down into five steps: importing your contact list, setting up projects, uploading your existing contracts and forms as PDFs, creating payment plan and package templates, and re-creating your invoices.

Start by getting your existing contact list into Dubsado in bulk rather than adding people one at a time. If you've been using a spreadsheet to track clients, save it as a CSV file. Otherwise, look for an export option in your current system to generate one. If your list is a mix of active clients and cold or past contacts, you can split it into separate files and import each group on its own.

Head to Contacts ➔ Import CSV to start the import. For the full walkthrough, including formatting your file and matching its columns to Dubsado's fields, see import your contact list.

While importing your active clients, you can check Create a project for each new contact to automatically create a project for each one, giving you a head start on Step 2. This is worth doing only for clients you have ongoing work, contracts, or invoices with. Skip it for a list of cold or past contacts.

A project is the hub for a client engagement in Dubsado: contracts, invoices, emails, forms, and scheduling all live on it. Set one up for each new encounter or contract with a client. For example, a photographer would create a new project for each session, while a consultant might use one project per client.

To create a project, give it a title, a contact, and a project status. Dubsado starts you off with two built-in statuses: Lead: No status for a client still in the inquiry or onboarding stage, and Job: No status for a booked client who already has a signed contract or paid invoice. If you've already created your own project statuses, use one of those instead.

You can also set a project date if you want one, tucked behind the Add more details section of the project creation flow.

With your projects in place, past contracts and completed forms have somewhere to go. Save or export them as PDFs from your old system first, then upload them to the matching project.

A contract your client already signed in another system uploads onto its project as a signed-contract record. Open the Contract row on the project, then choose Upload PDF as signed contract from the dropdown. For the full steps, see upload a signed contract.

Questionnaires, agreements, worksheets, and anything else you want on file upload to the project's Forms tab as a read-only PDF form. Click Add a Form to get started. For the full steps, see upload other documents as PDFs.

If you have general notes to add about a project, the Notes tab works well for that too.

Setting up payment plan and package templates now saves you time in Step 5. Instead of rebuilding line items and installment schedules on every invoice, you can drop a template on and go.

If you invoice clients in installments or collect a deposit, set up a payment plan template to apply to invoices later.

A package is a template for a line item or a set of line items, essentially anything with a price point in your business. Scan your old invoices for line items you charge repeatedly, then create packages for them.

Only a real Dubsado invoice lets you record payments and track a balance, so re-create your existing invoices in Dubsado rather than uploading them as PDFs.

Open the project's Invoicing tab and start a new invoice. Add your packages and any additional line items, then build an invoice for the full click-by-click walkthrough.

Once the invoice reflects what you originally billed, record payments already made outside Dubsado so your balances stay accurate. If the invoice is still open or unpaid, you can also apply one of your payment plan templates.

Need more than one invoice on a project? You can add more than one invoice to the same project.

For clients on an ongoing billing cycle, set up a recurring invoice and set it to start on the date of the client's next invoice. To record what you've already billed on a recurring plan, create a single invoice with one line item for the total invoiced so far and record the past payments against it, rather than re-creating every past cycle.

Only if you don't need to record payments against them. Uploading a PDF gives you a static record, while a re-created Dubsado invoice lets you log payments, track the balance, and apply payment plans.

No. Create projects for clients you have ongoing work, contracts, or invoices with. For past clients, leads who didn't convert, or referral contacts, import them as contacts without projects. Reserve the Create a project for each new contact option for your active clients.

Create a single invoice with one line item for the total you've invoiced so far on that plan, then record the past payments against it, rather than re-creating every past cycle individually.