Switching CRM Software in 2026: A Contractor's Move Plan

The best week to change software is the slowest week on your calendar, and most contractors only start thinking about it in the busiest one. That is when the old system drops a lead, loses a photo or sends the wrong invoice. This guide covers switching CRM software as a contractor: when to do it, what your current contract allows, what comes over and what stays behind, and a week by week plan that keeps jobs moving while you change.

Cedar House Stack publishes this guide and makes two contractor products, the Stack (the CRM) and Cedar House Field (the canvassing and technician app). Every competitor contract, trial and setup term below was read on that company's own pricing page on October 20, 2026.

What does switching CRM software involve for a contractor?

Switching CRM software for a contractor means moving four things: your customer and job records, the files attached to each job, your price book and templates, and the habits of everyone who logs in. The first two are a data job. The last two are where most switches stall.

A contractor's CRM is different from an office CRM. A sales team at a software company moves contacts and deals. A roofer, plumber or HVAC shop moves years of addresses, signed contracts, before and after photos, insurance paperwork, equipment records and the payment status of every job. A missed column in that export is a homeowner whose warranty you can no longer find.

So treat the move as a small project with a start date, an owner and an end date, not something the office manager squeezes in between calls.

When is the right time to change contractor software?

The right time is your slowest month, about four to six weeks before your current contract renews. That gives you room to test the new system with real jobs and to give notice without paying for a term you will not use.

• Roofing and exterior trades: late fall or winter, after storm season and before spring canvassing starts.
• HVAC: the shoulder months in spring or fall, between the heat and the cold calls.
• Plumbing and electrical: demand is steadier, so pick the month with the fewest jobs in production and no big project closing.

Look up your renewal date before anything else. Some contracts renew by themselves, and missing the notice window can lock you in for another year.

What your current contract says about leaving

Your current contract decides how fast and how cheaply you can leave, and the terms vary widely. Some vendors let you cancel at the end of any month. Others sell terms of one to three years, and some charge a setup fee again if you ever come back.

Sources: Jobber pricing and FAQ, SalesRabbit pricing and FAQ, Housecall Pro pricing and FAQ, plus the JobNimbus and Roofr pricing pages and Cedar House pricing, all read October 20, 2026. AccuLynx is left out because its pricing link opens a request form with no published terms.

Three lines in that table matter most to someone on the way out. Jobber's FAQ says that on the 12 month commitment, cancelling early keeps the monthly bill running until the term ends, and an annual prepayment is not refunded. SalesRabbit's FAQ says charges are not refunded for a cancelled billing cycle, that signing back up after 30 days brings a new implementation fee, and that after you cancel your data becomes inaccessible, with a chance to download it first. Plan your export before the cancel date, not after.

What should come over, and what should stay behind?

Bring over everything that describes a customer, a house or a job, and leave behind anything that describes how the old software worked. History moves. Settings get rebuilt.

Bring it over

• Customers and contacts, with phone, email and address.
• Every job, all statuses and all years, with the contract amount, sold date, sales rep and job type.
• Insurance details for roofing and restoration work: claim number and carrier.
• Photos, signed contracts, adjuster scopes and old estimate PDFs, one folder per job.
• For service trades: the equipment at each address (model, serial, install date, filter size) and every active maintenance agreement with its price and renewal date.

Leave it behind, or rebuild it

• Open invoices and payment history. Your accounting system is the record for money; finish collecting old invoices where they were raised.
• Automations, templates and commission plans. Rebuild them in the new system, and fix whatever annoyed you about them in the old one.
• Cancelled memberships and dead leads you would never call again.
• Users who left the company.

The one thing nobody should rebuild by hand is the job history. If a vendor's plan for your five years of jobs is retyping them, keep shopping.

The switching plan, week by week

A planned switch for a small or mid size contractor runs about five weeks, and the old system stays on until the last step. Here is the order that keeps jobs from falling through the gap.

1. Week 1: read the contract and pick a date. Find your renewal date, the notice period and any cancellation terms. Pick a cutover date in a slow week and tell the team.
2. Week 1: export everything. Pull a job list that covers every status and every year and save it as a CSV on your own drive. Download the files for each job into one folder per job, named by customer or address. Service companies also export equipment and memberships.
3. Week 2: clean the file. Delete test jobs and duplicates, fix obvious typos in addresses, and note any status names only your company uses. Do not try to make it perfect; a clean enough file beats a late one.
4. Week 2: test a sample. Import 20 or 30 jobs first. Check that statuses landed in the right stage, that amounts are right, and that photos are attached to the right house.
5. Week 3: import the rest and set up. Bring in the full file, add your price book and templates, and invite the team. Put the field app on every phone that knocks doors or runs calls.
6. Weeks 3 and 4: run both for one pay period. New leads go into the new system. Jobs already in production finish where they started. Payroll and commissions for that period come from whichever system the job lived in.
7. Week 5: cut over and cancel last. Once the pay period closes cleanly, stop entering anything in the old system, take one final export, store it somewhere you control, and only then cancel.

Our JobNimbus alternatives guide and AccuLynx alternatives guide cover the export step for those two systems in more detail.

How do you get the crew to actually use the new system?

A crew uses new software when it saves them a step on their first day with it, so start with the screens they touch most, not with the full feature tour.

• One owner for the switch. Name one person who answers every "where did this go" question for the first month.
• Short sessions by role. Fifteen minutes for canvassers on logging a door, fifteen for techs on finishing a visit, an hour for the office on scheduling and invoicing.
• Turn the old system read only. If people can still add jobs to the old system, some will. After cutover, nothing new goes in there.
• Check the numbers after two weeks. Look at who has logged in and who has not, and ask the people who have not what is in their way.

Where do contractor CRM switches usually go wrong?

Most failed switches go wrong in the same few places: the export was incomplete, the move happened in a busy month, or the old system was cancelled before anyone checked the new one.

• Exporting only open jobs. Warranty calls and repeat customers come from closed jobs. Export all of them.
• Forgetting the files. A job list without its photos and signed contracts is half a history.
• Letting the import guess. A status like "no answer" can be read as lost. Any import should show you what it will create before it writes a single row.
• Re-billing old work. Imported jobs should arrive as history. They should never raise invoices, pay commission again or text a homeowner.
• Cancelling first. Some vendors make your data hard or impossible to reach after cancellation. Export, check, then cancel.

How a switch to Cedar House Stack works

Switching to Cedar House Stack is an import you preview first and can undo afterwards. It is a one time import, not a live sync with your old system. The full walk through is on our move page.

• Jobs and customers. In Settings, Data, you drop a CSV. The importer reads AccuLynx, JobNimbus and Roofr exports under their own column names, or a plain spreadsheet. Before anything is written you see how many jobs, worth how much, at which stages, and any row it was not sure about. A status it does not recognize comes in as a lead with the original wording kept on the job.
• Imported jobs are history. They raise no invoices, pay no commission and text nobody, and the whole batch can be undone in one step.
• Photos and paperwork. Zip your job folders, one per job, and drop the zip. Each folder is matched to a job by its name and you approve every match before anything is filed. Up to 2,000 files and 512 MB per run; bigger archives go in parts.
• Service companies. Equipment lists and live membership books come over from ServiceTitan's exports as they are, so each member keeps their price and renewal date. Nobody is billed at import.
• Or hand it over. Every account can send its exports and have the move done, matched, imported and checked before the team signs in.

Pricing is per person and public on our pricing page: $99 a Stack user up to 5 users, then one flat price for your team size, and $25 a Field seat, at founding prices. The trial is 30 days with no card, and everything you create exports back out in open formats.

When switching is the wrong call

Switching is the wrong call when the problem is how the current system is set up, not what it can do. Before you move, ask your current vendor's support whether the thing that annoys you can be changed. A cleaned up pipeline and two new automations can fix more than a new login.

Stay where you are, or pick something other than Cedar House, if:

• You are inside a multi year contract with months to run and no exit clause. Plan the switch for the renewal date instead.
• You are a one person service business that needs scheduling and invoicing and little else. A lighter tool such as Jobber's entry plan may cover it for less.
• You order measurement reports and materials inside the job every day. JobNimbus's pricing page lists supplier integrations on every plan, and AccuLynx's features page listed report and material ordering when we read it on October 16, 2026; Cedar House lists report ordering as coming soon.
• You run a large residential service fleet that lives on a dispatch board. ServiceTitan is built for that size.
• You need a live, ongoing sync between two systems. Our import is a one time move.

If you are still choosing, our guide to choosing a CRM for contractors sorts the options by trade and team size, and the trade pages for roofing and HVAC show what the Stack does for each.

Questions contractors ask before they change software

Should I switch CRMs in the middle of a busy season?

Usually not. A switch takes a few weeks of attention from the office, and in a busy month that attention goes to jobs instead. Pick your slowest month, ideally four to six weeks before your current contract renews. If the old system is losing leads right now, start the export and the test import now and do the cutover when the rush eases.

Do I have to pay for two CRMs while I switch?

For a short time, often yes, and that is normal. Running both for one pay period lets jobs already in production finish in the old system while new leads start in the new one. A free trial helps: as read on October 20, 2026, Jobber, JobNimbus and Housecall Pro list 14 day trials and Cedar House lists 30 days with no card, which can cover most of that overlap.

What happens to my data if I cancel my old CRM?

It depends on the vendor, so read their terms before you cancel. SalesRabbit's FAQ, read October 20, 2026, says data becomes inaccessible after cancellation, with a chance to download it first. Whatever your vendor says, take a full export of jobs and files, open it to check it is complete, and store it on a drive you control before the cancel date.

Will my customers notice that I changed software?

They should only notice if something breaks, such as a missed appointment reminder or an invoice from the wrong system. Keep customer facing messages on one system at a time: finish open invoices where they were raised, and switch reminders and review requests over on your cutover date. Imported jobs should never text or bill a homeowner by themselves.

Can someone else do the data move for me?

Yes, most vendors offer some help, priced differently. JobNimbus sells paid Professional Services for migrating data, SalesRabbit requires an implementation package, and Roofr includes onboarding on its Essentials and Scale plans. Cedar House offers every account the option to send its exports and have the move done and checked before the team signs in.