Importing bookings from another system

Switching from another booking system? You don't have to start from scratch. The Import Data tool brings your existing future appointments into TimeToBook from a CSV file — no manual re-entry, no missed clients on Monday morning.

Before you start

Two things need to be set up first, otherwise the importer won't have anywhere to put your data:

Add your staff under Staff & Services → Staff. Names should match (or be close to) the names in your CSV — the importer auto-matches them and lets you fix the rest by hand.
Add your services under Staff & Services → Services. Same idea — the importer auto-matches by name. Any service in your CSV that doesn't exist in TimeToBook will block the import until you create it.

You don't need clients set up in advance. The importer creates them automatically.

Exporting from your old system

Most platforms have a "Bookings export" or "Appointments report" that can be downloaded as a CSV. Some examples:

Timely — Reports → Appointments, set the date range, export as CSV.
Fresha — Reports → Sales → Appointments, export.
Booksy — Calendar → Export.
Spreadsheets — any CSV with columns for date, start time, end time, customer name, staff and service will work.

Make sure the export covers future appointments — past bookings can be imported too, but they're rarely useful and inflate your reports.

The wizard, step by step

Open Settings → Import Data, pick Bookings, and follow the six steps.

1. Upload your CSV

Drag in the file (or click to choose). TimeToBook reads the headers and the first few rows so you can spot-check the data.

2. Map your columns

The importer auto-suggests a mapping based on common header names ("Customer", "Start time", "Stylist", etc.) but you'll likely need to confirm or tweak. Six columns are required:

Date
Start time
End time
Customer name
Staff name
Service name

These are optional but recommended:

Phone (so SMS reminders work)
Email (so confirmation emails work)
Status, price, and notes

You also pick the date format and time format of your CSV here. Auto-detect usually gets it right, but if your dates look like 09/04/2026 (UK) versus 04/09/2026 (US), set this manually.

3. Map your staff

TimeToBook lists every distinct staff name from your CSV and asks which TimeToBook staff member each one corresponds to. Names that match exactly are pre-selected. You must map every staff name before you can continue — there's no "skip".

4. Map your services

Same idea for services: every distinct service name in your CSV must point at a service in TimeToBook. If something isn't there, the wizard tells you which services to create, and you can hop over to Staff & Services → Services in a new tab, add them, then come back.

5. Dry run

Before any data is touched, the importer does a dry run. You'll see:

How many bookings will be created
How many existing clients will be matched by email or phone
How many new clients will be created
Any conflicts with existing TimeToBook bookings on the same staff/time
Any errors (rows the importer couldn't parse)

You also choose how to handle conflicts:

Skip conflicting rows — safest. Anything that overlaps an existing booking is left out.
Import anyway — useful if you're starting from an empty calendar and trust your CSV.

6. Run the import

Click Run import. Progress streams live ("Imported 47 of 162 bookings…"). When it's done, you get a summary and your bookings appear on the calendar immediately.

If something goes wrong: undo

Every import is recorded as a single batch, and the last import can be undone in one click from the same page. Undoing removes every booking that import created — but it does not remove or roll back any new clients (they stay in your client list, where they're harmless).

Use undo if you spot a column-mapping mistake, the wrong date format, or an obvious mass conflict. Then re-run the wizard with the right settings.

Importing clients

The Import Data page also has a Clients tab for importing a Timely client export directly. Use this if you want your client list before any bookings — though if you're going to import bookings anyway, the booking importer creates clients automatically and you can skip this step.

Tips

Start with a small test export. Export one week of future bookings first, run it through, sanity-check the calendar, then run the full export.
Match staff and service names before exporting. Renaming things in TimeToBook to match your CSV is easier than mapping dozens of mismatches in the wizard.
Don't import past bookings. They clutter your reports and reduce no-show stats accuracy. Filter the export by date if your old system supports it.
Phone numbers matter. A booking with a phone number is worth ten without — that's the reminder SMS your clients actually open.