Switching stocktaking software: the exports to take, the notice traps, and the overlap count

Switching stocktaking software feels riskier than it is, because your history lives inside the old tool and the old tool has your card details. Done in the wrong order it costs you your records. Done in the right order, export everything, run one overlap count, then cancel, it's a fortnight of background admin and the renewal email loses its power over you. Here is the right order, the contract small print worth reading before you touch anything, and the one count that proves the new tool before you burn the boats.

Why people actually switch

Nobody switches for fun. The triggers I see in licensee groups are always the same few. A renewal email with a bigger number on it. Paying every month for recipe costing and purchase orders that nobody in the building has ever opened. An American app counting in ounces while you buy in 70cl and 50 litres. An app that hasn't seen an update in a year and logs you out at random. Or support that answered in a day when you were a prospect and answers in a week now you're not.

All of those are good reasons. The bad reason is switching for a feature list you won't use either. You're allowed to move to something smaller and cheaper. Most pubs need counting, pricing and a variance report done well, not a procurement suite.

Read the door before you walk through it

Before exporting anything, find out what leaving actually costs. This varies more than the pricing pages let on, and some of it you only learn at cancellation. What the vendors' own pages say, with the dates I checked them:

Exit-relevant terms from vendors' own pricing pages. Check your own agreement; terms change.

Tool	What their own page says	Checked
Jelly	£129/month flat, monthly billing	3 Sep 2026
Growyze	Monthly per venue, 30-day trial, no card to trial	5 Sep 2026
Backbar	Free Basic tier exists ($0, one location), paid tiers monthly or annual	7 Sep 2026
MarketMan	USD pricing from $249/month, demo-led sales, contract terms not published	12 Sep 2026
Bar Patrol	$49/month billed annually or $69 monthly; their page states no free trial and a cancelled first month is still charged; annual refundable within 30 days	14 Sep 2026
StockTake Online	Price on a call, personalised demo, no self-serve trial	18 Sep 2026

Two patterns worth naming. Anything sold on a demo and a call tends to be cancelled on a call too, so find your notice period in the agreement you signed, not on the website. And setup fees are sunk: money already spent is not a reason to keep spending, however much it stings.

Export everything before you cancel anything

The order matters because some tools cut access the day the subscription ends. While your login still works, take out:

• The product library, as CSV if the tool offers it: names, sizes, cost prices, selling prices, suppliers. This file is the difference between an afternoon's setup and a week of typing.
• Your last two full counts. The most recent closing stock becomes your opening position in the new tool, and the one before gives you a variance baseline.
• Anything the tool calculated for you: yields, allowances, par levels, keg sizes. Screenshot the settings pages; screenshots are faster than forms.
• Invoice or delivery history if it holds it, for your accountant more than for the new tool.

If there is no export button and support goes quiet when you ask for your data, you have learned the most useful thing that tool will ever teach you: what lock-in looks like. Remember it when you sign the next contract.

The overlap count: prove the new tool before you cancel the old one

This is the step people skip, and it's the one that makes switching safe. Run one full count in both systems on the same day. Same shelves, same part bottles, same cellar.

The two results will not match, and that's the point. Every difference is a setup error in the new tool that you get to find while the old system is still there to arbitrate: a wine imported at 700ml that's really 750, a keg size defaulted wrong, a line missing entirely, a cost price that didn't survive the import. Fix the list, and the new tool is calibrated against your own bar rather than against hope. It's the same logic as the two-count method I recommend for testing software on a free trial, just with a working system as the referee.

One overlap month costs you one month of double subscription, usually less than £150 all in. A botched cutover costs you your baseline and a quarter of arguing with a variance report you can't trust.

Rebuilding the library without a week of typing

The import is where switching goes slow or goes fast. Three things to watch whatever tool you're moving to. Naming conventions: your old tool might have "Smirnoff Red 70cl" and a colleague's additions as "Vodka - Smirnoff", and if the import doesn't spot the duplicates you'll carry both forever. Sizes: wine has a way of importing at 700ml when bottles are 750ml, and every part bottle you count afterwards inherits the error. And cost prices: check a handful of lines against real invoices before trusting any of them.

For StockTap's part in this, the import is a CSV upload with a preview that flags likely duplicates and odd sizes before anything lands in your library. Bottles it recognises get full and empty weights from the catalogue so weighing works immediately; anything it doesn't recognise counts by tenths until you've weighed it once. That's the honest state of it: you won't type your range in line by line, but nobody's import knows your bar better than you do, so budget an hour for checking whatever tool you choose.

When to jump

Switch straight after a full count, so the number you carry across is fresh. Quarter end or year end is natural. The worst times: mid-way through a variance investigation, the month before a pubco audit visit, or December, when nobody has an hour spare and the stock is at its annual peak. Give notice on the old tool per its terms, and diary the end date so you're not paying for a ghost subscription in March.

Buy the exit next time

The tool you're leaving was chosen on its features. Choose the next one on its exits: monthly rolling billing, export available every day you're a customer, and a trial that runs on your own bar with your own range rather than a demo on someone else's data. My full buyer's checklist goes through the questions in order, and the current UK price table is in what pub stocktaking software costs. StockTap's answer to the exit question, for the record: £19 or £39 a month, no contract, cancel any time, CSV export always on, 14-day trial with no card. If it ever stops earning its keep, leave the same way you arrived, with your data.