Switching hauling software without losing your history

What history matters

Most of the work is in a short list of records. Move each one, and check each one.

• Accounts. The customer you bill: name, billing address, contact, terms, tax status.
• Locations. Where you pick up. One account can have many, and each stays tied to its account.
• Services and prices. What goes out at each location: container size, stream, how often, which days, and the price. Prices belong to services, not accounts. A customer with three locations may pay three different rates.
• Routes and stop order. Which truck runs each stop, on which day, in what order. Your drivers know the order. Your software should too.
• Containers. What is out there: size, type, tag or serial number, and where it sits.
• Invoices and payments. Every invoice, every line on it, and every payment applied to it. This is how you answer “what was this charge for?” a year from now.
• Opening balances. What each account owes on the day you switch. If nothing else moves, this number does, so it has to be right.
• Weigh-ins. If you weigh, bring each weight with its date and the service it belongs to. A weight with no date or service cannot be compared to anything.

For each record, ask one question: will someone need to look this up after the switch? If yes, it moves.

Keep each record’s original date

A record loaded on switch day should not look like it was born on switch day. Keep the date each account opened, the date each invoice was issued, and the date each payment arrived.

Dates drive real decisions:

• Aging. Receivables are sorted by how long they have been unpaid, and the longer one goes unpaid, the less likely it is to be collected (OpenStax). If every old invoice takes the load date, a 120-day balance looks current and your past-due list goes quiet.
• Customer history. “Customer since 2014” matters when you set a price or renew a contract.
• Tax records. The IRS expects electronic records to reconcile with your books, shown by an audit trail, and kept as long as they may matter. Replacing your software does not end that duty (IRS).

After a load, open five old accounts you know well. Check that the dates read the way you remember them.

Match balances to the penny

The balance each customer owes is the one number they will notice. Check it two ways.

1. The total. Add every account’s balance in the new system. It should equal the receivables total in the old one, and in your books. As one accounting text puts it, subsidiary ledgers have to balance and agree with the general ledger (OpenStax).
2. Each account. Compare account by account. A matching total can hide two errors that cancel out: one account $40 high, another $40 low.

When an account does not match, trace it. The usual causes:

• A payment applied to the wrong invoice, or left unapplied.
• A credit or write-off that did not come across.
• A voided invoice that came across as open.
• Rounding on tax or a surcharge, one cent at a time.

Fix the cause, load again, and check again. “Close enough” turns into a customer’s phone call later.

If you bring all your history, each opening balance should equal that history: every invoice, less every payment and credit. If you bring balances only, the balance stands alone, so check it harder.

Side by side, then one switch day

There are a few standard ways to move from one system to another. An information systems text names them (Bourgeois):

• Parallel. Old and new run together for a limited time. The least risky, and the most expensive, because the work is done twice.
• Direct cutover. You pick a date, and the old system is not used after it.
• Phased or pilot. One part of the work, or one group of people, moves first.

For billing, a long parallel run is hard on a small office. Every payment is keyed twice, and the two systems drift apart a little each day. A phased move splits one customer’s history across two systems.

A middle path works well. Compare side by side before you switch, then move on one day. Load the new system, check it against the old one, and fix what differs. When it matches, pick the day.

Pick it with care:

• Right after a billing run is posted, so no invoices are half done.
• Not right before a big billing run, so there is room to fix a surprise.
• A day the office can spare a few hours to check the result.

Reload from a newer backup until the day you switch

You do not have to freeze the business while the new system is set up. Keep working in the old system. Take a backup, load it, check it. A week later, take a newer backup and load it again.

Each load is a rehearsal. You find what breaks, fix it, and the next load comes in cleaner. By the last rehearsal, the load should be dull: the same checks, the same results.

On switch day:

1. Post the last invoice and the last payment in the old system.
2. Take the final backup.
3. Load it one last time.
4. Run the same checks: account count, balance total, each account’s balance, a few spot checks.
5. Start work in the new system. From here on, nothing is entered in the old one.

Keep the old data where you can still read it. The IRS keeps most tax records open for three years, four for employment tax, and seven for a bad debt deduction. It also notes that insurers or creditors may require longer (IRS).

A switch checklist

Before the first load:

• List every record you keep: accounts, locations, services and prices, routes and stop order, containers, invoices, payments, opening balances, weigh-ins.
• Decide how far back history goes. All of it, if you can.
• Write down today’s numbers from the old system: active accounts, active services, total receivables.

After every load:

• Account and service counts match.
• Total receivables match to the penny.
• Every account’s balance matches.
• Dates on a few old accounts, invoices and payments read as they did.
• Each route has the same stops in the same order.
• Prices on a sample of services match their last invoice.

On switch day:

• Last invoice and last payment posted in the old system.
• Final backup taken and loaded.
• Every check above run one last time.
• The office knows new work goes in the new system only.
• Old data kept somewhere you can read it.

Switching from TrashFlow to RouteNow

RouteNow’s SwitchNow is a dedicated path out of TrashFlow. If you bill through TrashBilling.com, that comes along too.

It carries every account, location and service with its pricing. It brings your billing history with no cutoff: every invoice and payment, replayed into RouteNow. Opening balances land to the penny, and your schedules and routes come with you.

You send your TrashFlow data and keep running your day as you do now. RouteNow builds your book, and you check it side by side with what you know is true. Nothing goes live until it matches. Then one switch day, any day you pick.

Running something else? ImportNow brings clean data in from an Excel or OpenDocument file, one table at a time, with a live preview before you commit. See Switch from TrashFlow.