How to Switch PMS Without Losing Bookings (UK Guide)

You can switch PMS without losing bookings if you treat the move as a sequence rather than a single day: rebuild your rooms and rates first, import every future booking, check the numbers match, map each channel, and only then move live availability across in one short, planned window. Most of the risk sits in the order you do things, not in the software you pick.

This guide is for independent UK hotels, B&Bs, guest houses and holiday lets that have outgrown a system, or a spreadsheet, and are put off by the fear of a lost forward book. It covers what has to come across, when to make the move, a step-by-step changeover checklist, and the mistakes that cause double bookings in the first week. Still choosing a system? Start with how to choose a hotel PMS, then come back here.

Why switching feels riskier than it is

The forward book is the business. Every confirmed stay over the next twelve months is money you have already earned, and every one of them lives inside your current system. That is why so many owners stay on software they dislike: the move feels like walking a tightrope with the diary in your arms.

In practice, bookings get lost in three predictable places:

• The gap. Bookings that arrive between your first export and the day you go live, and never make it across.

• The overlap. Both systems selling the same rooms at once, so two channels sell the last double to two different guests.

• The mapping. A room type or rate on Booking.com or Expedia that is not linked to anything in the new system, so availability never reaches it, or a booking arrives with nowhere to land.

Plan around those three and you can switch PMS without losing bookings. The rest is administration.

What has to come across, and what can stay behind

You do not need to move everything. You need to move what lets you run tomorrow.

Must move

• Every future booking, whatever the source: OTA, direct, phone, email, walk-in, owner blocks and maintenance blocks.

• For each one: guest name and contact details, arrival and departure dates, room type and room, rate and total price, the original booking reference, the channel it came from, and any notes or special requests.

• Money already taken: deposits, prepayments and balances still owed, booking by booking.

• Your set-up: room types and individual rooms, rate plans, seasons, minimum stays and other restrictions, cancellation and deposit policies, and check-in and check-out times.

• Your guest messages: confirmation and pre-arrival wording, so a guest who booked before the switch hears from you the same way as one who books after it.

Can stay in an archive

Years of past stays, old rate plans you no longer sell and duplicate guest profiles do not need to be live in the new system. Export them, keep the files somewhere safe and readable, and leave them out of the import. A cluttered first week is a slow first week.

Two things are worth checking before you close the old account, though. HMRC expects you to keep business records for a set period: sole traders for at least five years after the 31 January Self Assessment deadline for the relevant tax year, according to GOV.UK's guidance on record keeping, and limited companies for six years from the end of the financial year the records relate to. If your old system holds invoices or payment records you rely on, export them in full. Separately, the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972 requires you to keep your guest register for at least 12 months, so if that register lives in the old system, export it too.

Pick the right changeover window

The best day to switch PMS without losing bookings is a quiet one. A few rules of thumb:

• Choose a low-occupancy, midweek stretch. Fewer arrivals and departures means fewer moving parts while you check things.

• Avoid Fridays, bank holiday weekends and local event weeks. If something needs fixing, you want time and attention to fix it.

• Count the guests who straddle the switch. Anyone checking in before the changeover and out after it is the awkward case. Decide whether they stay in the old system until they leave or move across, and apply that to all of them. Sometimes moving the date by two days reduces the list to almost nobody.

• Make sure the people who know the system are on site. A switch run by whoever happens to be on shift is how small errors become guest problems.

How to switch PMS without losing bookings: the step-by-step checklist

Work through these in order. Do not skip ahead to connecting channels because it feels like progress; channels are the last thing to go live, not the first.

1. List every source of bookings. Each OTA, your website, phone and email enquiries, any agents, and any calendar links you rely on. Anything not on this list is a channel you will forget to switch.

2. Take a full export from the old system and keep an untouched copy. Work from a duplicate, never the original, and note the last booking reference included.

3. Build rooms, room types and rates in the new system. Mirror how you actually sell, not how the old system forced you to. Then price a test stay and check it matches what a guest would have paid before.

4. Set up your policies. Cancellation terms, deposit rules, check-in times and house rules, so imported bookings carry the right conditions. Our guide to B&B cancellation policies and deposits is worth a read if you are rewriting them at the same time.

5. Import every future booking. From the old PMS or from a spreadsheet, whichever is cleaner.

6. Reconcile before you go any further. Compare the number of bookings and their total value for the next 30, 90 and 365 days in both systems. Spot-check ten real stays, including one OTA booking, one phone booking and one with a part-paid deposit. If the numbers disagree, stop and find out why.

7. Map each channel, room by room and rate by rate. Every room type and rate on each OTA needs a match in the new system before any availability is sent.

8. Move the live connections in one short window. Switch each channel's connection to the new system, then close the old system for sale, so the two are never both selling. Check availability and prices on each extranet straight afterwards.

9. Catch the gap. Run a final export from the old system covering everything since your first export, and add any new bookings, amendments or cancellations by hand.

10. Move your direct bookings. Point the Book Now button on your website at the new booking engine and make a real test booking on a phone, through to payment and confirmation email.

11. Keep the old system read-only for a few weeks. Remove the ability to take bookings in it, keep access for reference, and only cancel the subscription once a full billing cycle has run cleanly in the new one.

Deposits, cards and balances in the middle of a move

Money is where a migration quietly goes wrong. A booking can come across perfectly and still show the wrong balance, which becomes an awkward conversation at checkout.

• Record what has already been paid against each imported booking, so the new system knows what is still owed.

• Ask both providers whether stored cards can move. If they cannot, decide now how you will take outstanding balances for stays already on the books: a payment request before arrival, or payment at check-in.

• Check OTA prepaid bookings separately. If a channel collected payment or issued a virtual card, make sure the new booking shows that, so nobody charges the guest twice.

Bring the team with you

A system nobody has practised on will be abandoned for the old habit at the first busy check-in. Before you go live, have each person do their real jobs in the new system: move a guest to another room, extend a stay, record a deposit, check tomorrow's arrivals, and mark rooms clean. Give everyone their own login with only the access they need, and agree on one rule for the first fortnight: if it is not in the new system, it did not happen.

Five mistakes that cause double bookings after a switch

• Leaving the old channel connection or calendar link running after the new one goes live.

• Mapping one OTA rate but forgetting a second rate on the same room type.

• Importing bookings once, two weeks early, and never catching the ones that came in since.

• Forgetting owner blocks and maintenance closures, so rooms you meant to keep off sale are suddenly available.

• Leaving a phone or email booking in a notebook on the desk during changeover week.

For more on how availability moves between channels, and why a calendar feed is not the same as a two-way connection, see syncing Booking.com and Airbnb calendars and our channel manager page.

Switching to StayVieo

StayVieo is built for independents, and our onboarding follows the steps above so you can switch PMS without losing bookings. We help you set up your rooms, rates and seasons, and we import your existing bookings free, from your old system or a spreadsheet, so your calendar looks like your property from day one. We map your channels with you and check that rates line up before anything goes live, so you keep taking guests throughout: there is no dark day where the old system is off and the new one is not yet on.

Inside the app, bookings sit on one drag-and-drop tape chart for every room and channel. Booking.com connects with live two-way sync, and connecting Expedia or Agoda is a two-step wizard: enter your property ID from the channel, match your rooms, and nothing is sent until those rooms are matched. Your data stays yours: you can export it at any time, and if you ever choose to leave, we will help with that migration too. You can see how the first week usually runs on our what to expect page, and it is the same move for B&Bs, guest houses and independent hotels.

Plans start from £39/month + VAT, with every part of StayVieo included. See pricing and talk to us for an exact price, or book a fifteen-minute demo and tell us which system you are on now. We will map out exactly how your move would work before you commit to anything.

FAQ

How long does it take to switch PMS?

It depends on how many future bookings you hold, how many channels you sell on and how tidy your current data is. The import itself is rarely the slow part; checking the numbers and testing each channel is. With StayVieo, most independent properties are comfortable within the first week.

Can I switch PMS without losing bookings already made on Booking.com?

Yes. Import those bookings with their original references, map the Booking.com rooms and rates in the new system, then move the connection across. Your listing stays where it is; what changes is the system that sends it availability and receives its bookings.

Can I import bookings from a spreadsheet instead of an old system?

Yes. If your diary lives in a spreadsheet or a paper book, that is fine. As long as each future booking has dates, a room, a guest name and the amount paid, it can come across. StayVieo imports bookings from a spreadsheet free.

What should I keep from my old PMS after switching?

A full export of bookings, invoices and payments, plus your guest register. HMRC expects business records to be kept for several years, and the guest register must be kept for at least 12 months. Keep the files somewhere safe before you close the account.