Switching to Compliar: moving your customers, sites and asset history

Plain answers about moving your records. What is covered depends on your current system and how its data exports, so we look at your files with you first. Last reviewed 3 November 2026.

The worry is the records, not the price

If you already run jobs, certificates and site histories somewhere else, the question is not "is the new one better?" It is "how do I get my customers, sites and assets across without losing a year of history or stopping the work?" Here is how it works with Compliar.

What you can bring across

Owners and admins can import records from CSV or Excel files, one type at a time. You can import:

• customers and sites
• assets
• jobs, defects, certificate and service history
• parts
• asset types, maintenance plans, defect wording, contracts and contacts

Templates to download are included, so you can see the layout each file needs before you touch your own data.

How a move usually goes

1. Talk to us first. Book a demo and tell us what you use now. We look at what your current system can export and what that means for the import.
2. Start with the core. Customers, sites and assets first, because everything else hangs off them. Then maintenance plans, history and contacts as needed.
3. Set up your own templates and job types so engineers see the certificates and forms they actually use.
4. Run both for a short time if you want to. There is no contract, so you are not locked in while you check it works for you.

Help with the move

Onboarding is hands-on help to get set up and working. It starts from £195, quoted individually and agreed in writing before anything starts. It covers setting up your account, users and seats, bringing across your customers, sites and assets from your current system, and setting up certificate templates and job types. Prefer to do it yourself? A self-service setup is available after your demo. See onboarding on the pricing page.

Your data stays yours

You can export your records at any time, one type at a time or everything together as a single .zip of CSV files: customers, sites, assets, jobs, certificates, defects, quotes, invoices, parts and stock, people and timesheets. Moving in should never mean you cannot move out.

What to check before you move

• What your current system can export. Ask for a full export of customers, sites, assets and history. Some systems export less than others.
• Which history you actually need. Recent certificates and open defects matter more than ten years of closed jobs. You can keep the old export as an archive.
• Your certificate wording. Compare the templates with the ones you issue now and tell us what to change.
• Your engineers. It runs in the phone's browser, so there is nothing to install on their phones.

A move, step by step

An illustration, not a case study: a fire and security contractor with six engineers, two office staff, about 180 maintained sites and a few years of service history in their current system.

1. Week before. They book a demo and bring a sample export from their current system. Together we map its columns to Compliar's import templates: customers, sites, assets, maintenance plans, open defects and the last two years of certificate history. Older history stays in their archive export.
2. Day one. The company is set up with eight seats: six Lite for the engineers, two Office for the desk. Customers and sites go in first, then assets, then maintenance plans, each as its own file, checking the counts after each.
3. Day two. Certificate templates and job types are set up to match the documents they already issue, with their logo and details on every PDF. Engineers log in from their phones; nothing is installed.
4. First week. Routine jobs for the next three months are generated from the maintenance plans. The first visits go out with the open defects already showing on the job. Invoices raised in Compliar are created in Xero once the link is connected from Settings.
5. First month. The old system stays available read-only while the office checks that what they need is in Compliar. Then the archive export is filed and the subscription ends. There is no contract, so the timing is theirs.

Common mistakes when switching

• Importing everything at once. Customers and sites first, then assets, then plans and history. Each depends on the one before.
• Trusting the old system's export blind. Duplicate customers, sites with no address and assets with no location are common. Clean them in the spreadsheet before the import, not in the app afterwards.
• Re-creating every old template. Start from Compliar's built-in templates for each discipline and change what you actually need; Office seats can edit them or build their own.
• Moving mid-cycle without the due dates. Bring the maintenance plans across with their next-due dates so the routine jobs land where they should.
• Forgetting the people. Engineers, their seats and who is allowed to see what are set up before the first job, not after.

What your customers see

From the customer's side, the certificates and reports arrive by email from the job as branded PDFs, as before. If you give them a portal login they see their issued certificates and open defects. If a site has a digital log book, the premises staff scan the QR sticker to log their weekly and monthly tests. None of that depends on which system you used before.

Who you will deal with

Compliar was founded by Keiran Sandham, who has spent 20 years in the electrical, fire and security industry and still runs a team. He runs the demo and the onboarding himself, so the person who understands your records is the person who built the software. Early adopters who join in the first 12 months after launch keep their seat prices for three years; it is not a contract and you can leave at any time.

How Compliar helps

Import and export sit in the app for owners and admins, with downloadable templates. Onboarding is quoted individually and agreed before it starts.