Move from Vagaro to CRM Checklist

Moving from Vagaro to a CRM: Migration Checklist for Small Salons

Most salon migrations fail in the gap between "we exported the clients" and "the team can run Monday morning."

A customer list is important. It is not the whole salon.

The real operating system includes services, staff calendars, booking rules, deposits, cancellation policy, intake forms, notes, packages, invoices, payments, reminders, client tags, and the little comments staff rely on during busy days.

Moving from Vagaro to a CRM should therefore be treated as an operating migration, not a file upload.

This checklist is written for small salons that want to move into a CRM-first workflow without losing the context that keeps appointments running. For the cost side of the decision, read the Vagaro total cost model first.

Phase 1: Decide What Is Actually Moving

Create three buckets.

Bucket	Examples	Migration decision
Must move	Active clients, future appointments, core notes, services, prices, deposits.	Import or rebuild before cutover.
Archive only	Old campaigns, old product sales, inactive clients, historic reports.	Export and store for reference if needed.
Do not move	Duplicates, outdated notes, unused tags, abandoned services.	Clean or leave behind.

This keeps the migration from becoming a landfill. Not every historical field deserves to be imported into the new CRM.

Phase 2: Export Customers And Notes

Vagaro's support documentation says business owners can export the Customer List from reports as Excel or PDF, with filters affecting what is exported. Vagaro also documents customer-note export from the web version, where notes can be exported to Excel or printed.

That gives you a starting point, not a guarantee that every field you care about will arrive in perfect CRM shape.

Before importing, check:

• Client name
• Mobile number
• Email
• Birthday, if used
• Tags
• Notes
• Preferred employee or service provider
• Marketing status, if available
• Last appointment date
• Future appointment date
• Duplicate profiles
• Empty phone or email fields

Export a small sample first. Open it. Look at the column names. Check whether notes are one row per note, one field per client, or a separate export. The format determines the import plan.

Phase 3: Clean Before Import

Do not import messy data and promise to clean it later. Later rarely comes.

Clean:

• Duplicate clients with the same phone or email.
• Old clients the salon does not need in the active CRM.
• Phone numbers with inconsistent country codes.
• Test clients.
• Staff profiles accidentally saved as clients.
• Empty records.
• Old tags nobody understands.
• Notes that should be archived rather than carried into daily work.

Keep a backup of the original export before editing. The cleaned file should be a working import file, not the only copy of the salon's history.

Phase 4: Rebuild Services Manually

Services should usually be rebuilt, not blindly imported.

For each service, confirm:

• Name
• Category
• Duration
• Price
• Staff who can perform it
• Online booking availability
• Deposit or full-prepayment rule
• Buffer time, if used
• Cancellation or preparation note

This is a chance to remove old service names and prices that have drifted. A salon often discovers that its old booking menu contains duplicates like "Gel polish," "Gel Polish," "Gel manicure," and "Shellac" that staff use inconsistently.

If deposits are part of the reason for moving, rebuild them carefully. The separate guide on deposit policy for nail salons can help decide which services need deposits and how the policy should be worded.

Phase 5: Rebuild Future Appointments

Future appointments are the most sensitive part of the migration.

For each future appointment, verify:

• Client
• Service
• Staff member
• Date and time
• Duration
• Deposit status
• Notes
• Cancellation or reschedule history
• Reminder status

Do not trust a calendar import until you have checked real appointments against the old system.

Use this sample:

• 10 appointments from the next seven days.
• 10 appointments from the next month.
• Every appointment on the first Saturday after cutover.
• Any long service or high-deposit booking.
• Any appointment with a note or special request.

If one sample fails, pause. Find the pattern before importing the rest.

Phase 6: Rebuild Booking Rules

Booking rules often live in settings rather than exports.

Document:

• Business hours
• Staff working hours
• Minimum booking notice
• Maximum advance booking window
• Services available online
• Cancellation policy text
• Deposit rules
• No-show rules
• Waitlist process
• Booking links on website, Instagram, Google, or email signatures

In Tregovia, rebuild booking rules from the salon's actual policy rather than assuming import will recreate them. The useful test is whether staff can configure the public booking flow, deposit expectations, waitlist process, and no-show review in a way that matches how the salon already explains those rules to clients.

For no-show policy design, use this nail salon no-show guide before turning on stricter controls.

Phase 7: Decide What Happens To Forms

Forms can be messy in migrations because form templates, submissions, signatures, and client records may export differently.

Ask:

• Which forms are still active?
• Which submissions need to remain visible in daily operations?
• Which old submissions are archive-only?
• Are photo permissions separate from service consent?
• Are allergy or sensitivity notes duplicated in forms and client notes?
• Can form exports be matched to client records?

Tregovia's Client Forms add-on supports intake forms, consent forms, questionnaires, client links, submissions, and review workflows. It is the right area to evaluate if forms are part of the salon's daily process. But historic forms should be tested as their own migration stream, not assumed to be part of the client import.

Phase 8: Billing, Deposits, And Reports

Money data needs a retention plan.

Decide whether each item should be:

• Imported into the new CRM.
• Exported and archived.
• Recreated only for unpaid or active balances.
• Left in the old system during the retention period.

Check:

• Unpaid invoices
• Recent payments
• Refunds
• Deposits for future appointments
• Gift cards, if used
• Packages or memberships
• Sales reports
• Tax reports

For many small salons, it may be cleaner to import active balances and future deposits while archiving old reports. Ask your accountant what needs to remain accessible and in what format.

Prepare Tregovia As The Receiving System

Treat Tregovia as the receiving operating system, not just the destination for a client spreadsheet. The import file is only one part of the move.

That means the realistic Tregovia migration plan is:

1. Export customer and note data from Vagaro where available.
2. Clean and map the client CSV.
3. Import a small sample.
4. Verify client records manually.
5. Rebuild services, prices, durations, deposits, and online booking rules.
6. Rebuild or manually enter future appointments.
7. Decide which historic billing, forms, packages, and reports are archive-only.
8. Train staff on the new daily workflow.

Do not describe the import as automatic unless that has been tested with the actual salon export. The safe claim is that Tregovia can be evaluated as the receiving CRM workflow; the salon still owns data cleanup, field mapping, and validation.

Start from Tregovia pricing, then include migration time in the first-year cost model. Use the Vagaro total cost guide to decide whether the workflow justifies the switch.

Cutover Plan

Pick a quiet week.

Seven days before:

• Export customer list and notes.
• Clean duplicates.
• Build services in the new CRM.
• Configure staff calendars.
• Configure booking rules.
• Import a test sample.

Three days before:

• Check future appointments.
• Test reminders.
• Test deposits.
• Test invoices.
• Train staff on client search, booking, checkout, and notes.

One day before:

• Freeze non-urgent changes in the old system.
• Export final customer and appointment changes.
• Update booking links.
• Keep old system access available.

First day after:

• Check every appointment before the day starts.
• Keep one person responsible for migration issues.
• Record every mismatch.
• Do not make big process changes while staff are learning the new system.

First week after:

• Review no-shows, reminder delivery, deposits, client duplicates, missing notes, and invoice issues.
• Fix the import map before importing any additional archived data.

Common Migration Mistakes

The first mistake is switching before a weekend. If something is wrong, the busiest day becomes the test.

The second mistake is importing all old data. Active operational data and archive data have different jobs.

The third mistake is not checking notes. For salons, client notes can matter as much as contact details.

The fourth mistake is forgetting booking links. Website buttons, Instagram, Google profile links, QR codes, email signatures, and text templates may still point to the old booking page.

The fifth mistake is keeping two systems live without rules. Once staff book in both, the data goes out of sync.

Migration Rules To Keep

• Moving from Vagaro to a CRM is an operating migration, not just a customer-list export.
• Customer lists and notes should be exported, inspected, cleaned, and tested before import.
• Services, deposits, booking rules, forms, future appointments, billing, and reports need separate migration decisions.
• Tregovia's Data Import can be evaluated for CSV import workflows, but field mapping and validation still matter.
• Cut over during a quiet week and verify real appointments before the first full day.

Vagaro Migration Questions

What should salons export before leaving Vagaro?

Start with customer lists, notes, reports, future appointments, services, packages, memberships, payment history, forms, and marketing or text-message data the salon needs for operations or records. Verify which exports are available in the current Vagaro account.

Can every Vagaro field move automatically to a CRM?

No. Export availability, field format, notes, forms, packages, payment history, and appointment history must be tested. Some data may need manual mapping, archive-only storage, or careful cleanup before import.

When should a salon switch systems?

Switch during a low-risk week after testing a sample import, rebuilding services and booking rules, training staff, and verifying future appointments. Avoid cutting over before a busy weekend.

Can Tregovia receive salon client data?

Tregovia can be evaluated for CSV-based data import and the receiving salon workflow, but the salon still needs to map exported fields, test samples, and verify records manually before cutover.

What is the biggest Vagaro migration risk?

The biggest risk is assuming the customer export equals the whole business. Notes, forms, deposits, future appointments, packages, staff calendars, reminders, and booking links need separate validation.

Final Cutover Rule

Moving from Vagaro to a CRM should make the salon simpler, not just different.

Export the customer list, but do not stop there. Check notes, future appointments, services, deposits, forms, billing, reminders, reports, staff access, and booking links. A calm migration is built from small verifications before cutover, not heroic cleanup after the first broken Saturday.