# How do I switch bakery software without losing my orders and customers?

> Export customers, upcoming orders, ingredients, supplies and expenses to CSV, import them in order, then rebuild products so they are costed. Usually a weekend's work.

Export ingredients, supplies, customers, upcoming orders and expenses from your old system or spreadsheet as CSV
files and import them into ibakepro, up to 2,500 rows per file. Products are
rebuilt rather than imported, so each one is costed from what you actually pay
for its ingredients. The move usually fits in a weekend, and you can keep the
old system open, read-only, as a reference.

## A switching plan

1. **Pick a quiet week.** Not the fortnight before Christmas or Mother's Day.
2. **Export everything you can** from the old system: customers, orders
   (at least every future-dated one), ingredients with prices, supplies and
   expenses. Keep a full copy of the raw exports.
3. **Import in this order:** ingredients and supplies, customers, upcoming
   orders (recent history can follow), then expenses.
4. **Rebuild your best sellers.** Start with the ten products that make most
   of your revenue. Each takes minutes once the ingredients are in, and it is
   the step that makes costing and margins work.
5. **Take new orders in ibakepro from a set date.** Every order with a future
   event date should already be in ibakepro by then.
6. **Send customers the new order link** and update the link in your
   Instagram bio, website and email signature.

## What moves, and what you rebuild

| Moves by CSV | Rebuilt in ibakepro |
|---|---|
| Customers and their contact details | Products, sizes and flavour options |
| Upcoming orders (and recent history) | Recipes and components |
| Ingredients and supplies | Website and storefront |
| Expenses | Automation workflows and email templates |

Products are rebuilt because in ibakepro a product is built from components and
components from ingredients, so a supplier price change flows through to every
cost and allergen declaration. A flat product list from another system cannot
carry that. If you are moving off spreadsheets rather than other software, see
[getting off spreadsheets](/blog/getting-off-spreadsheets).

## How the import handles a messy file

Upload the file as it came out of your old system. ibakepro proposes which of
your columns goes where, using Choux, its AI, for headers it does not recognise,
at no credit cost, and shows every row as it will land before anything is
written. Rows with a problem, such as a date it cannot read, are set aside with
the reason so you can fix them in bulk or skip them. There is also a standard
template import that uses no AI at all.

Imports add records and skip duplicates rather than overwriting them, so
running the same file twice is safe. On Essentials, imported orders count
toward the plan's 100-order allowance, so bring across upcoming orders and
recent history rather than ten years of it.

A 14-day trial gives you time to do the whole move before you pay. Plans and
prices are in [what does bakery software cost](/answers/what-does-bakery-software-cost).