Switching from spreadsheets to construction software, step by step
What to bring over, what to leave behind, and how to switch without months of entering everything twice.
Plenty of construction companies run on spreadsheets: a job list here, timesheets there, a change order log somebody forgot to update.
It works until two people have two versions of the same sheet, or the one person who understands the formulas is on vacation.
Switching takes less work than it looks, if you do it in the right order and don’t try to move everything at once.
List what your spreadsheets do today
Before you choose anything, write down every sheet the company relies on and what it’s for. For most contractors the list looks something like this:
- Jobs: the job list, with numbers, clients and addresses.
- People: the crew, subcontractors, suppliers and client contacts.
- Hours: the timesheets that turn into payroll.
- Money: estimates, change orders, invoices and what each job has cost.
- Field records: daily logs, safety talks, and photos living on somebody’s phone.
Next to each one, write who updates it and how often. That tells you which habits have to move, and who you need on board.
Decide what comes over, and what stays behind
You don’t need your whole history in the new system. You need what you’re about to work on.
Bring over your active and upcoming jobs with their job numbers, your clients, subcontractors and suppliers with a way to reach each one, and your crew, so you can invite them.
Leave behind finished jobs, old timesheets and old invoices. Keep those files where they are, saved as read-only, so you can still look things up.
Clean the job list before you import it
An import is only as good as the file you give it. An hour on the sheet first saves fixing jobs one by one afterwards.
- One header row, one row per job. Delete the title rows, the totals and the blank rows between groups.
- A different number for every job. If two jobs share a number, fix it now. A job number is the easiest way to tell two jobs apart, in any system.
- Values, not formulas. Paste the sheet as values, so each cell holds the number itself and not a formula pointing at another tab.
- One date format. Day first or month first, the same all the way down. 03/04 is March 4 to one person and April 3 to another.
- A way to reach every person. A contact with no email or phone number can’t be invited or sent anything.
- Jobs and people in separate files. Bring in the jobs first, then the people, so each person can be put on their job.
Run one job in the new system first
Pick a job that starts soon, with a foreman who’s good with a phone. Run it fully in the new system: the schedule, the hours, the daily log, the change orders, the invoice.
Leave every other job alone for two weeks. You’ll find the settings you missed, like your markup, tax rate or cost codes, while only one job depends on them. Then bring in the rest.
Set a date to stop the old sheets
Running both side by side for a few weeks is normal. Running both forever is how a switch fails: people keep updating the sheet they trust, and the new system goes stale.
Pick a date, tell everyone, and on that day make the old sheets read-only. Anyone who needs a number from last year can still look it up. Nobody can add to them.
Give the switch one owner
Name one person to run it. They answer the crew’s questions, fix the settings and decide what moves when. Without an owner, a switch tends to stall halfway.
Move one habit at a time
Don’t ask the crew to learn everything on day one. Start with the habit that pays back fastest. For most companies that’s the time clock: it ends the Friday chase for hours.
Add the daily log a week or two later, then photos and safety talks. The crew guide has the full plan.
The office can move faster. Quotes, change orders and invoices can switch the week you start, because the people doing them are already at a desk.
How CrewLog does it
CrewLog’s import is in Settings: jobs from a project list and people from a directory, as a CSV or .xlsx file up to 5 MB.
It reads your old system’s export, or any spreadsheet whose header row names its columns. Then:
- You say what each column is, and nothing is saved until you’ve seen every row: what’s new, what’s already in CrewLog, what needs a look and what’s left out.
- Formulas are flagged, and if a file mixes day-first and month-first dates, you pick which it is.
- Each job keeps its number, and running the same file again adds no duplicates.
- An import can be undone for 24 hours. Jobs with work already logged on them stay.
The owner or an admin runs it.
Import is on every plan, from $39 a month. Compare the plans.
More on switching on the features page.