How long does a migration take?

It depends on how much data you have and how tidy it is, but for a small-to-mid provider it's usually measured in days rather than months. The export and the load are the quick parts — your client list loads through Corella's spreadsheet import, every row shown before one press adds it; verifying that the records came across intact — and that the links between them survived — is what takes the time, and it's the part worth not rushing. Tell us what you're moving from and we'll help you plan it before you commit.

Will we lose our history?

Not if you export it first. Take complete exports while you still have access — client records, documents with their expiry dates, your price book — keep them dated as a safety net, and check what has come across before you rely on it. Once you're on Corella, your administrators can make a copy of everything — every record as spreadsheets, every document and photo in zips — at any time, from Settings → Your data.

Do we run both systems at once for a while?

We recommend it — run in parallel for a pay cycle so your first invoice run, NDIA claim file and payroll export are all proven before you cancel the old tool. The small cost of overlap buys you a switch with no gap in claims or pay.

How do you help with migration?

With what to export from your current system and in what order, how it comes into Corella, and checking what has come across with you before you switch. Your client list comes in through Corella's spreadsheet import — save the export as a CSV, check which column is which, and every row is shown before one press adds the new clients — and Staff → Update from a spreadsheet fills in the staff records you've added from your own staff sheet. The checking is the part worth planning before you give notice.

How to switch care management software

The short version

Your data lives in four estates: people, clients, roster history and billing. Name them before you move anything.
Export while you still have access — clients, contacts, documents, price book and staff certificates — and never cancel the old tool until the new one is verified.
Plan the migration with your new vendor's help and check it record by record before you rely on it — not as a homework project for your admin team alone.
Run both systems in parallel for a pay cycle so the first invoice run, claim file and payroll export are proven before you switch off.

Start with what you're actually moving

Most providers don’t run one system — they run a rostering app, a shared drive full of client folders, an accounting package and an HR tool, with a spreadsheet or two gluing them together. Before you look at any new platform, write down the four estates your data actually lives in:

People — staff records, contracts, certificates and check expiries, availability and leave.
Clients — profiles and contacts, support plans, goals, progress notes, and the documents attached to each person.
Roster history — who worked what, timesheets, and the open or future shifts already promised to clients.
Billing — your service and price book, funding agreements and budgets, and anything not yet invoiced or claimed.

Naming the estates turns “we’ll move everything” into a real checklist — and it’s the same checklist a good migration is run against.

Export while you still have access

The worst time to discover you can’t get your data out is the day after you cancel. While your current tools are live, pull:

Clients and contacts as CSV, with funding type and status.
The document library — client files, policies, staff certificates — kept in its folder structure so nothing loses its context.
Your services and rates, including the NDIS item numbers you bill against.
The staff list with certificate types and expiry dates.
Open and future shifts, so nothing promised to a client falls through the switch.

Keep the exports dated and read-only. It’s your data — a platform worth moving to will help you get all of it out of the old one, and let you take a full copy back out of the new one yourself, whenever you like.

If you are leaving ShiftCare, there is a step-by-step export checklist for exactly that move — what to pull, in what order, and what usually doesn’t survive the export.

Still choosing? Our named comparisons put Corella next to ShiftCare and Brevity, row by row, from each product’s own published pricing and documentation, on one standard for both.

What clean data looks like on the other side

Migration is a chance to fix the mess, not carry it across. In Corella the target shape is deliberately simple: one record per client, role-scoped so the office sees everything and field staff see only the need-to-know for the person in front of them. Your client list comes in from a spreadsheet, every row shown before it’s added; documents are uploaded with their expiry dates and version codes, so “which policy is current” has one answer; and your price book is set up with per-band NDIS item numbers, checked against the current national limits before you invoice against it. Price caps change every year — the NDIA publishes a new schedule, and some rates go down as well as up — and when one lands, Corella’s NDIS price-update screen audits your book against the new limits before anything changes.

The point of moving into one client record is that the Tuesday program and the Thursday home visit finally tell one story — and the story doesn’t depend on which tab you happen to have open.

How the migration actually runs

We help with migration: what to export from each system and in what order, how each of the four estates comes into Corella, and checking what has come across against the source — client by client, document by document — so you go live trusting what you see. Your client list comes in through Clients → Import from a spreadsheet: save your old system’s export as a CSV, check which column is which, and Corella shows every row — to be added, already here, or held back with its reason — before one press adds the new clients with their names, dates of birth, NDIS numbers and contact details. Staff → Update from a spreadsheet then fills in the staff records you’ve added from your own staff sheet, matched by the email each person signs in with, with every change shown before it’s applied.

Plan it before you give notice to your current vendor. Some agreements delete your data within weeks of the subscription ending, so the exports come first and the notice comes second.

The switchover week

Don’t big-bang it. The calm way to switch:

Run in parallel for a pay cycle — new rosters go into Corella, the old tool stays readable.
Cut the roster over once a full week rosters cleanly, with conflicts and clock-on behaving as expected.
Prove the money — do one real invoice run, generate one NDIA bulk claim file, and export one payroll CSV before you rely on them.
Then switch off the old subscriptions — not before the exports are safely stored and the first cycle has cleared.

A fortnight of overlap costs a little in double subscriptions and saves you the nightmare scenario: a claim or a pay run that can’t be reconstructed because the old system went dark too soon.

Where this lives in Corella

Client records Documents & compliance Billing & payroll Rostering