Bring your play area across without losing a thing

How does the move to PlayAreaOS work?

It is a handover you prepare in advance, not a weekend you lose. You keep trading on your old POS or your spreadsheets the whole way through, and every step shows you its result before the next one starts.

1. Export from your old system. Take your product list and your customer list out as CSV files. Your headings do not need tidying first.
2. See what will land. Load a file and PlayAreaOS shows you exactly what it will bring in, while nothing has been written.
3. Import. Your families and your products are in. Run the same file again and you still have one record each.
4. Enter your opening balances. Where stock, finance and payroll stand on the day you move, so day one starts from real numbers.
5. Close the old books. Freeze the old system at the moment you move across, so from then on there is one place to look.
6. Go live. Open the POS on PlayAreaOS. From your first night, your records are copied off-site every night.

Each step has its own section in the migration guide, and the team will walk it with you if you would rather not do it alone.

When does the switch actually happen?

On the day you pick, and not a minute before. The first four steps are preparation, spread over as many evenings as suits you while the old system carries on trading. Closing time, or a day the venue is shut, is the natural moment to move across. The two systems never have to stop at the same time, which is why the move costs you nothing in trading hours.

How long does it take?

As long as your files take, which is usually less than owners expect. Most of the work is one export and one look at what came back. A file that needs another pass is a quick correction and a re-run, never a restart, so a messy price list slows you down by an evening rather than a fortnight.

What comes across from my old POS or spreadsheets?

• Your families. One record each, and one record each even if you import the same list twice.
• Your catalogue. Your products, ready to be priced and grouped in the POS.
• Your opening balances. Where stock, finance and payroll stand on moving day.

Your prices and packages come with you unchanged. Products, packages, add-ons, deposits, VAT rate and currency are all yours, so your board on day one reads exactly as it reads today. Families sign your current digital waiver once, on their own phone, on their first visit after you go live.

Which systems can I import from?

An export from Loyverse, or a spreadsheet of your own. Both arrive as CSV and go through the same look-before-you-leap step. If you are moving off sheets and clipboards rather than off a POS, the spreadsheets and paper comparison sets out what each desk job costs you today.

What if a file turns out to be wrong?

Three things stand between you and a bad import, and they work in order. Before anything is written, you see what the file would bring in. During, a corrected file brings in only what is new or changed. And afterwards a whole import can be rolled back, so a wrong file is a step backwards rather than an afternoon of clean-up.

What happens after go-live?

Your lists and balances are in, your staff start their shifts, and parents sign on their first visit. From that first night your records are copied off-site every night, over an encrypted connection to storage that encrypts what it keeps, described on the backups and migration page.

Then the rest of PlayAreaOS opens up from the data you brought with you: play timers, party bookings, passes, campaigns, rota, payroll and finance, all working from one set of records.