Moving Your Practice

1. Before You Move

Start by taking a full copy of what your current system holds. Most practice systems offer a data export; if yours does not, ask your supplier for one in writing before you give notice. You will want three things out of it.

• A client list as a CSV or spreadsheet, one row per client, with at least an email address for each one
• The documents themselves: signed wills, letters of wishes, engagement letters, identity evidence and any file notes you are required to keep
• Your own precedents and standard wording, as Word documents

The CSV column reference. The client list you upload here needs only one column to be accepted: client_email. Everything else is optional, and anything the import does not recognise is reported back to you at the validation step rather than silently dropped. The columns the import reads are:

• Client identity: client_email (required) and client_name
• Testator detail, as testator_ columns: first_name, middle_name, last_name, date_of_birth, email, phone, address_line_1, address_line_2, city, postcode, country and marital_status
• Jurisdiction, as jurisdiction_country and jurisdiction_region
• Will metadata: will_date, will_type, original_will_location, next_review_date, existing_will_reference and notes
• Repeating people, numbered from 1: executor_1_name, substitute_executor_1_name, beneficiary_1_name, guardian_1_name and so on
• Detail columns for each person, which differ by role: every role takes first_name, last_name and relationship, and a beneficiary also takes date_of_birth and share_percentage, so beneficiary_1_share_percentage carries the first beneficiary’s share

Save the file as UTF-8 CSV. If your old system exports one row per will rather than one row per client, that is fine: the import matches on the email address.

2. Set Up

Get the firm itself in place before any client data arrives, so that the first invitation a client receives already looks like your practice.

1. Create the firm account and complete your application. The application help topics cover offices, jurisdictions, qualifications and supporting documents
2. Add your colleagues and set their seats on Team, so that work can be assigned as soon as the import lands
3. Bring your own precedents across with Import from Word, which reads a Word precedent into an editable template. Review every clause before you use an imported template with a client
4. Set up your engagement templates so each imported client has a letter to sign. The engagement templates guide explains what each template is for

3. Import

The import runs in one place, in four steps, and nothing is created until you have seen the validation result.

1. Open Bulk import and upload your CSV
2. Review the validation result. Rows with an advisory warning, for example beneficiary shares that do not add up to 100, still import; rows with a blocking error, for example a malformed email address, are skipped and listed separately so you can correct them and upload again
3. Watch the processing step. Each accepted row becomes a client record and an invitation to that client
4. Read the results. Every row shows its own outcome, and Imports keeps the history of every import you have run

Documents in batches. Upload the documents after the client records exist, a batch at a time rather than the whole archive at once, so that a failure part way through is easy to see and easy to repeat. Attach each document to the client it belongs to from the client record; Managing clients covers the client record itself.

Review. Before you tell anyone the move is done, spot check a sample of imported clients against the old system: the name and address, the jurisdiction, the executors and beneficiaries, and the document count. An import that lost a column is much cheaper to find now than after a client has been in touch.

4. Tell Your Clients

Each imported client receives an invitation from your practice, so plan a note of your own to arrive first and explain why. Clients are far more likely to accept an invitation they were expecting.

The wording below is a starting point you can copy and adapt. It is an information aid, not a compliance product: how the notice sits against your own data-protection obligations, and against any professional or regulatory rules your practice follows, is a question for your compliance adviser before you send it.

Keep a record of when the notice went out and to whom. If a client objects, deal with it before their invitation is accepted rather than afterwards.

5. Go Live

Go live when the client book is in, the documents are attached and the notices have gone out. A short overlap is worth having.

• Keep read access to the old system until you are confident nothing is missing, then close it down in line with whatever your contract with that supplier says
• Point new enquiries here first, so that nothing new is created in a system you are leaving
• Watch the acceptance rate on your invitations for the first fortnight and chase the clients who have not responded
• Keep your own copy of the original export, held to the same standard as the rest of your client data

6. If You Leave Later

The same door works in both directions, and it is open from the day you arrive. Export practice data builds a single archive of your clients, wills, engagement letters and audit history, and tells you what it leaves out and why. You can request one at any time, not only on the way out.

If you are leaving a firm, retiring, or separating your own records from a practice you are moving on from, Leaving a firm or retiring explains what happens to your account, your clients and your own estate plan.

A Note on This Guide

This guide describes how the software works. It is general information and not legal, tax or regulatory advice, and it does not tell you what your own obligations are when client records move. If you are unsure about any of that, take advice from a professional who can look at your particular circumstances.