6 min read · Updated 2026-10-18
In short
Move in stages rather than on one weekend. Export and keep your records first, bring families, students and tutors across, run both systems side by side while staff learn the new one, tell staff and families what changes for them, and switch invoicing on a clean date so no lesson is billed twice or not at all.
Most owners who want to move put it off for the same reason: the fear of a Monday afternoon when the timetable is wrong, a tutor turns up to an empty room and a family is invoiced twice. That fear is reasonable, and it is also avoidable. Changing systems is less about software than about timing. The centres that move smoothly do it in a planned order, keep the old system as the source of truth until the new one has proved itself, and pick one clear date for money. If you are still deciding, see XTutio and Teachworks compared.
1
Export and keep your records while you still have full access.
2
Decide what comes across, and clean it first.
3
Run both side by side, one system for the timetable.
4
Tell staff, then families.
5
Switch invoicing at one clean date.
6
Take a final export, then let the old system go.
1. Export and keep your records
Before anything else, take your own copy of everything you may need later and keep it somewhere the business controls. Check what your current system lets you export and in what format, and do it while you still have full access.
- Families, parents and contact details
- Students, with school year and any notes
- Tutors and staff, with their pay rates
- The timetable and lesson history, including attendance
- Invoices, payments, credits and any balances families hold
- Any custom fields or notes your centre relies on
- Your current price list, billing terms and cancellation policy
Keep the money records in particular, for as long as your accountant tells you the rules require. A family who asks about a payment from last year deserves an answer whichever system you use now.
2. Decide what comes across, and clean it first
Moving is the best chance you will get to tidy up. Archive families who left years ago, merge duplicate contacts, and fix shared email addresses (two parents on one address causes trouble later). Decide which records belong in the new system and which only need to live in your export.
This is where an admin usually loses a weekend to spreadsheets. In XTutio, the Teachworks import brings families, students and tutors across through your centre's own Teachworks connection. You preview it first: every record is marked new, already here, to be linked or skipped, and nothing is written until you press Import. A skipped record comes with a sentence saying why, such as a shared email address or a record marked duplicate or inactive, and running the import twice creates nothing twice. Invoices, payments, custom fields and inactive records are not imported, which is one more reason to keep your export. The steps are in importing from Teachworks.
3. Run both side by side
For a few weeks, keep lessons in the system your tutors already know while the rest of the centre learns the new one. This lets you check the new system against the old with real families, without risking a missed lesson.
- Choose one system for the timetable during the overlap, and make sure every tutor knows which one.
- Check a sample of families each week: does the new system show the right children, lessons and contacts?
- Keep a short list of anything that does not match, and fix it before you switch.
XTutio is built to run beside Teachworks. With lessons switched to read only, the roll, moves and cancellations are made in Teachworks, the sync keeps the portal's copy up to date, and any change tried in the portal is refused with a sentence saying where to make it. Our article on running Teachworks alongside covers that term in detail, and switching to XTutio shows how the stages fit together.
4. Tell staff, then families
Staff first. Show the front desk and tutors what changes for them, on which date, and who to ask. Give them time in the new system before families arrive, and name one person as the go-to for questions in the first fortnight. In XTutio your centre invites its own staff by name, email, job and campus, and the setup checklist, in five stages, checks your real data rather than a tick someone forgot to clear.
Then families. Tell them in one plain message what is changing, what they need to do (usually: sign in, check their details) and what stays the same (their lessons, their tutor, their price). Send it when you are ready for them to sign in, not before. XTutio's import sends families no email, so you choose when that message goes, and you see the invitation and who gets it before anything is sent.
5. Switch invoicing at a clean date
Money is where a move goes wrong, so give it one clear date, usually the start of a term or a month. Lessons before the date are billed by the old system and lessons from the date by the new one. Settle or carry across every family's balance on that date, with the figure written down, and tell families which system their next invoice comes from.
- A start date for charging in the new system, agreed with your bookkeeper
- The last invoice run in the old system covers every lesson before that date
- Each family's balance on the date is recorded and carried across or settled
- Price list, billing terms and cancellation policy entered in the new system
- Families told which system their next invoice comes from
In XTutio you pick the day the portal starts charging families. Until then nothing is charged there, and a lesson that happened before your start date is never charged by the portal, even after the date arrives, so the overlap cannot bill anyone twice. The guide to services, prices and billing covers setting up your terms.
6. Let the old system go
Once lessons, families and invoicing all run in the new system and a full billing cycle has gone through cleanly, take a final export from the old one, store it with the first, and close your access on your own timetable.
Teachworks is a trade mark of its owner. XTutio is not affiliated with or endorsed by Teachworks.
Questions centres ask
- How long does it take to move a tutoring centre to new software?
- Plan for several weeks rather than one weekend. Importing people can take an afternoon, but running both systems side by side and switching invoicing at a clean date is what takes time, and it is what keeps lessons and money right.
- Should I import my old invoices into the new system?
- Usually not. Keep your own export of past invoices and payments, carry each family's balance across on a set date, and start fresh invoicing in the new system from that date.
- Can I keep using Teachworks for lessons while I move to XTutio?
- Yes. With lessons switched to read only in XTutio, lessons are booked and changed in Teachworks and the sync keeps XTutio's copy up to date, while families, homework and mail carry on in the portal.
