How to export your data from Kickserv (before you cancel)

The single most important fact about leaving Kickserv: its help center says that when you cancel, all your account information, including customer and job records, is permanently deleted.¹ So the export comes first, the cancellation comes last, and nothing gets cancelled until you've opened every file and checked it.

Kickserv's public help center is thinner on export steps than most. It tells you where data can be exported, not exactly what each file contains. This guide shows what it does say as animated illustrations, flags what it doesn't, and tells you what to ask Kickserv in writing.

What you'll end up with

TradesWork has no dedicated Kickserv importer, so Kickserv files come in through its Another system or a spreadsheet option, which takes customers and a price list. Everything else is your archive.

Before you start: who can do what

Kickserv's settings article says the Account & Billing tab is where you'll find everything related to your subscription, that you can also export data in this section, and that only the account owner has access to that tab.² Its cancellation article adds that only the account owner can cancel.¹

So if you're the office manager and not the account owner, you'll need the owner to sign in, or to make you the owner first. Kickserv's permissions article covers changing the account owner.³

1. The data export in Account & Billing

Go to Settings, then Account & Billing under Company Settings, as the account owner, and use the export option there.²¹ The help article doesn't name the button, list what the export includes or give its format, so when it finishes:

• open each file and note what's in it (customers, jobs, invoices, payments, or something else),
• count rows against what you see in Kickserv, and
• write down anything you expected that isn't there.

That last list becomes your written question to Kickserv support.

2. Export your items

Your products and services are your price list. Kickserv's settings article says that under Items you can add, import, export and edit your items.²

Check that prices, costs and descriptions came through, and keep the file. This is the file you'll import as a price book in a new system. Gotcha: if an item's price cell says something like "quote", a new system will flag it. Fix those in the spreadsheet, not in the old system.

3. Run the default reports

Every paid Kickserv plan includes more than 20 default reports in three groups: Sales and Marketing, Work, and Finance.⁴ For an archive and a cut-over, the ones that matter are:

Source: Kickserv help center, Reports.⁴

Run each for your full date range. For a long history, run Jobs Completed and Payments a year at a time.

4. Build custom reports for the gaps

On Run plans and above (formerly Standard), you can build custom reports from templates.⁵

1. Open Reports from the left-hand navigation.
2. Click the drop-down arrow next to New Custom Report and choose a report type.
3. Name it under What is your report called? and tick the data fields to include.
4. Drag fields to order them, then set How should your data be filtered? and How should your data be grouped?
5. Choose what must be unique under Do you need to remove duplicates from your report?
6. Click Create report.

Use this for a customer report with every contact and address field, or a jobs report with dates, techs and totals. One caveat: a 2009 Kickserv blog post describes an export-to-CSV button above the report name on custom reports.⁶ That post is old, and the current help article doesn't mention an export option. Check your report screen, and ask support if you don't see one.

5. Check QuickBooks

If you sync Kickserv with QuickBooks, a lot of your data is also there. Kickserv's help center says that if you integrate with QuickBooks, Kickserv brings your customers over from QuickBooks automatically.⁷ Compare your customer count and open A/R in QuickBooks with Kickserv's Account Aging report. If they match, QuickBooks is a second, independent copy of your customers and invoices.

6. The API, if you have a developer

Kickserv has a public API (version 2, XML over HTTP); authentication uses an employee's API token from employee management.⁸ The help article says API tokens are only available on its Premium plan, an older plan name, so ask which current plan includes them. For most shops, the reports above are enough.

What you can't export yourself

Permissions and plan limits

The Free plan option, and the deletion risk

Kickserv's cancellation article says you can switch to the Free plan at any time and keep all your data, and that cancelling instead deletes it. The account owner goes to Settings, Account & Billing, opens the Cancel tab and chooses between Change to free plan and Continue with the cancellation.¹ Kickserv's current pricing page lists only paid plans,¹⁰ so confirm the Free plan option still appears before you count on it.

Also note the terms: after expiration or termination, Kickserv may deactivate your account and delete the data in it, and it may disable accounts inactive for 60 consecutive days.⁹

How TradesWork imports these files

Choose Another system or a spreadsheet on the TradesWork import page, drop the customer file and your items, confirm what each file is, match the columns and see a preview before anything is saved. You can import into a separate sandbox company first. The Kickserv to TradesWork migration guide shows each screen, and TradesWork vs Kickserv covers whether it's worth the higher price.