Switching to Strata from OrbisX or Urable

Start the trial before you cancel anything

Don't cancel the old system the day you sign up. Strata's trial runs 30 days and you can cancel anytime, so keep OrbisX or Urable running until the new setup is proven with your own customers and deposits.

While the old account is live, export everything. From OrbisX or Urable you can pull your customer list, their vehicles, and your invoice and payment history as files. After you cancel, an export becomes a support ticket.

• Customers: names, phone numbers, emails, addresses
• Vehicles: year/make/model, VIN or plate, tied to the right owner
• Invoices and payments: what was billed, what was collected, the dates
• Any notes or service history you'd hate to retype

What comes over on its own

Strata imports from a CSV, so anything that exports one works: OrbisX, Urable, TintWiz, QuickBooks. Download Strata's template, line up your columns, and import your customers, their vehicles, invoices, and payments.

The linkage is what matters. Every vehicle lands tied to its owner, and every invoice to that customer and car: "this is Dave, this is his lifted Tahoe, here are the five jobs we've done on it."

Bring the financial history too. Your revenue, margin, and collection-rate numbers depend on it, and Autopilot reads each customer's visit cadence off past invoices, so Strata knows who's overdue for a rebook on day one.

Set it up yourself, in minutes

No implementation call, no onboarding fee, no multi-week setup. Upload the export, Strata maps the columns, you check the mapping, and you import. If a column landed wrong, fix it and run it again.

That's the contrast with a guided setup that keeps you waiting before you can take a booking. This is short enough to do between customers.

• Upload your export file
• Check the column mapping, name, phone, vehicle, and amount, and correct anything that landed wrong
• Import, then spot-check ten customers you know by heart to confirm the vehicles and history came across clean

What you set up by hand (and it's quick)

Some things don't ride along in an export, because they're account connections and settings rather than records. Budget an afternoon for these, and treat it as a chance to clean up the stuff you've been meaning to fix anyway.

On Pro and Premier, turn texting on first. It takes one tap in Settings and runs on Strata's registered line, so reminders and confirmations go out the same day. Only shops that insist on their own Twilio number face a carrier wait.

• Booking page: your services, prices, durations, hours, deposit amounts, and whether each job is in-shop or mobile
• Texting: flip it on in Settings and pick the automations you want; nothing to register
• Payments: connect Stripe so deposits and invoice payments hit your own account, and record in-person cash or card payments manually
• Team: add your people and set what each role can see and do

What changes the first morning

After the import, it feels like your shop, with the history already in it. Your month calendar, jobs board (Scheduled, In Progress, Awaiting Pickup, Complete), and revenue, margin, and collection dashboards are populated from what you imported.

Customers pick a service and time on your branded booking page and pay a deposit right after booking. Quotes convert to appointments, then invoices, and every customer sits next to their vehicle, service history, and message log.

Autopilot flags follow-ups in an approval queue: an overdue regular with the win-back text already written, a cold quote, a finished job never invoiced. Nothing sends until you tap Approve.

Run both for a week, then cut the cord

Keep the old system as read-only reference for a week or two. Take a live booking, confirm the deposit hits your Stripe, watch "reply C to confirm" work, then invoice and collect. After one clean cycle, cancel the old subscription.

Don't leave two booking pages live at once, or you'll double-book. Point your website, Google profile, and link-in-bio at the Strata page and take the old one down in the same sitting. Keep the export files as backup.