How to Switch From Precise Petcare to Another Pet Sitting Software

To leave Precise Petcare safely: export everything, import it into the new tool as a dry run, match your counts, and only then cancel. By the end of this post you will have an 8 step checklist, a counts table to fill in, and two short messages to send to the old and new vendor.

Precise Petcare is listed with on-demand data export, so your records are yours to take. The risky part is not the export. It is what the import quietly drops: recurring schedules, vaccination dates, notes. So the plan below is built around proving nothing was lost.

Do the export before anything else

Cancelling first and exporting later is the one mistake you cannot undo. Export while the account is fully active.

What to ask for, in this order. It follows the export list in a pet business switching checklist from Collar:

1. Clients and pets
2. Vaccines, with dates and expiry
3. Forms and notes: access notes, medical and behavior notes, vet and emergency contacts
4. Open bookings and recurring schedules
5. Invoices with balances, deposits and payment history

Two habits save you later. Clear every filter before you export, because a filtered export only holds the clients on screen. And if the old tool lets you pick fields, as Time To Pet's export does, pick all of them, not the defaults.

Save the files in a folder named with today's date. Never edit those originals. Work on copies. A spreadsheet can strip leading zeros from phone numbers and ZIP codes and rewrite dates, and you do not want that in your only copy.

If you cannot find an export for something like recurring schedules or invoices, send this to Precise Petcare support:

I am closing my account. Please send me a full export of clients, pets, vaccinations, notes, recurring schedules, service rates and invoice history, in CSV. Tell me which fields are not included.

The last sentence matters. It makes them tell you what is missing now, while you still have an account.

Write down your counts before you import

This is the part most guides skip, and it is the cheapest insurance you have. Open the export files and fill in the left column before you touch the new tool.

Example: say you run a 5 sitter company with 140 clients, 190 pets and 22 recurring schedules. Your table starts like this.

These numbers are an illustration. Use your own. The rule: every row in the last column must say yes before you cancel. A gap is a row to fix, not a rounding error.

Also check your field coverage. List the fields you use every week: client name, phone, email, address, pet name, breed, vaccines, vet, access notes, rates. Count how many appear as columns in the export. Anything under 100 percent is a question for support, today.

Match client and pet files before you import

Many tools export clients and pets as separate files. Time To Pet's export has separate client and pet options, and Collar's lives in the Pets section. Whatever tool you use, check that every pet row points to a client by name, email or an ID. A pet with no client attached cannot be imported cleanly.

Open both files and look at the first 20 rows. If the columns look scrambled or the phone numbers lost a digit, fix the copy now.

Ask the new vendor four questions before you commit

Some importers move everything except bookings. ProPetware says it transfers pet and customer lists, vaccinations, notes, vet information, emergency contacts and custom fields, but not booking information. That means every upcoming visit would be yours to re-enter. Ask about it up front.

Send this to every vendor you are considering:

I have CSV exports of clients, pets and schedules. Which of these come across: clients, pets, vaccinations, notes, vet info, open bookings, recurring schedules, invoices? Do you offer a dry run, so I can check the mapping before anything is final? Is there a way to undo the import? What do I have to re-enter myself?

A good answer names what is not imported. A vague answer is an answer.

Here is how I would weigh the replies:

The 8 step move

• Day -7: clean the data. Merge duplicate clients, remove pets you no longer serve, fix obvious typos in phone numbers. Cleaning a spreadsheet is faster than cleaning a live account.
• Day -7: pick the go live date. Choose the start of a pay period or billing cycle if you can. Tell your sitters the date.
• Day -7: freeze other changes. Do not change rates, service names or forms in the same week you move. If a total looks wrong, you want to know whether it is the import or the setup.
• Day -1: take the final export and fill in the counts table.
• Import into a trial, as a dry run. Read how old columns map to new fields. Fix anything wrong. Compare counts. Only commit when every row matches.
• Spot check five clients end to end. Pet details, rate, next three scheduled visits, last invoice. Pick the messy ones: the client with four pets, the one with a custom rate.
• Run one pretend day. Walk through booking, the visit, the visit notes and billing in the new tool. If any step still needs the old tool, you are not ready.
• Keep the old account for one billing cycle, then cancel.

The overlap costs you one more month of the old plan. Example: say that is $100. Compare it to one lost booking from a missed recurring visit. Most owners find the overlap is cheaper.

What to do about open invoices and payroll

Finish the current cycle in the old tool. Do not split a pay period between two systems, because then you re-key hours and chase missing charges.

If you must switch mid cycle, export open invoices with balances, deposits and payment history, then re-create only the open ones in the new tool. Do not re-enter paid history. Keep the export file as the record.

Mistakes that cost you the most

Where this works with Porchlight

I work on Porchlight, so weigh this accordingly. The Switch Kit imports exports from Precise Petcare, Time To Pet, Pet Sitter Plus and LeashTime, with a dry run and a one-click rollback. It detects the column mapping, so you are checking a result rather than building one. How long it takes depends on how much data you have.

It is also fair to say who should not move. If you run facility and boarding depth, QuickBooks heavy bookkeeping or want a big community, Porchlight's own comparison page says Time To Pet is stronger there. And Porchlight has no public customer count or reviews yet, so the way to judge it is the free trial and the dry run with your own data.

If per-seat pricing is what is pushing you out, what per-seat pricing really costs walks through the math. If you want to compare against another vendor first, read how to switch from Time To Pet to see the same move from the other side. For a deeper look at what a complete export holds, see what to export before you leave.

Your next ten minutes

Open your old account and find the export option on the client and pet lists. Run it with all filters cleared, save the files with today's date, and write your client, pet and recurring schedule counts in the table above. That is the whole job for today.

Try the dry run with your own data

When you are ready, start free for 30 days. No card is needed. Run the Switch Kit dry run on your export, compare your counts, and decide with real numbers in front of you.