The First 90 Days After Moving Your Client Records

You moved everything off paper and spreadsheets. Month one went smoothly.

By month three, the same client existed twice, categories meant different things depending on who set them, and the notes field was empty.

⚠️ Migration day isn't the finish line. The first three months decide whether the records stay usable.

The short version

• Month one: clean up duplicates
• Month two: re-align categories
• Month three: decide on unused fields
• Every month: 30 minutes on the same day
• One person makes the corrections

Month one — duplicates

Same phone number, two records
Same person, two spellings

⇒ Duplicates mean do-not-book entries and categories sit on only one copy.

⚠️ Merge into the record with more bookings, copying over notes and do-not-book entries first.

Month two — categories

Desk A …"regular" after one visit a month
Desk B …"regular" after three

⇒ After two months, each person's habits show. Write the definitions down, post them, fix the outliers.

Month three — unused fields

A field almost empty for three months
⇒ drop it, or decide when it gets filled in

⇒ Empty fields make people doubt the fields that are filled.

Thirty minutes a month

First of the month, 30 minutes
duplicates / category mismatches / empty fields

⇒ Small fixes, often, before the drift spreads.

One person corrects

⚠️ If everyone fixes records, one person's fix gets undone by another.

The numbers to keep

One   duplicate clients
Two   category mismatches
Three fill rate of each field

⚠️ If One rises every month, people aren't following the phone-number format.

A sheet for the office

────────────────────────────────────
  First 90 days

  Month 1: merge duplicates (into the record with more bookings)
  Month 2: post category definitions, fix mismatches
  Month 3: drop or fix empty fields
  Monthly: 30 minutes, same day
  Corrections: one person
────────────────────────────────────

Common objections

"We cleaned everything when we moved"

⇒ It's what comes in afterwards that drifts.

"Duplicates don't hurt"

⚠️ Until the do-not-book entry is on the other copy.

"More fields will be useful later"

⇒ Only if they're filled in.

This week

One   find clients sharing a phone number
Two   write down category definitions
Three count empty fields
Four  set the monthly day and the person
Five  start merging duplicates

Doing it by hand, or on a screen

By hand …sort the sheet by phone number and scan
On screen …search clients by phone number or name

⇒ tasteck's client list can be searched by phone number or name, with category (per venue if set), do-not-book entries, notes and visit history together on each client. Client lists can also be imported by CSV.

⚠️ Duplicates aren't detected or merged automatically. Search by phone number and check by eye.

Wrapping up

• Month 1 duplicates, month 2 categories, month 3 empty fields
• 30 minutes, same day every month
• One person corrects

Client records become usable in the three months after you move them, not on the day.