Guide · RV parks and campgrounds

Switching RV park software: a checklist

4 minute read. Last updated 2026-11.

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Changing software is mostly a project about dates, deposits and people, not about the software itself. This checklist is written so you can work through it with any system, in the order that tends to hurt least.

1. Decide why you are switching and what must not get worse

Write down the two or three problems that started this. Then write down what your current system does well, because those are the things you will miss on day one.

List the problems you want solved, in order.
List what works today that the new system must also do (online booking, a site map, a check-in step, a report you rely on).
Ask who else touches the system: front desk, maintenance, a bookkeeper, a seasonal worker.

2. Take inventory of your data

Open the old system and note what it holds. Then find out what it will actually let you export, and in what format.

Sites: names, types, hookups, size limits, and rates by season.
Guests and residents: names, emails, phone numbers, vehicle details.
Future reservations: dates, site, rate, amount paid, balance due.
Deposits you are holding for stays that have not happened yet.
Payment and ledger history you need to keep for your books and your tax adviser.
Taxes and fees: the rates you charge and where each one applies.
Templates: confirmation emails, rules and policies, agreements.

3. Get your data out before you cancel anything

Request or run every export now, and save the files somewhere outside the old system.
Open each file and check it: do the row counts look right, are dates readable, are names split the way you expect?
Ask the old provider what happens to your data, and for how long, after you cancel.
Keep the old system running, read-only if you can, until the first full month on the new one is reconciled.

4. Pick the date

A cutover date is easier to defend if it avoids your busiest days and lines up with an accounting boundary.

Choose a slow stretch, not a holiday weekend or the first arrivals of your season.
Prefer the start of a month, so the old system holds one period and the new one holds the next.
Pick the date for reservations that exist today: everything arriving after it will need to be in the new system.
Tell your staff the date and the plan at least two weeks ahead.

5. Protect money that is in motion

This is the step that causes the most trouble, so give it the most time.

Ask your payment processor whether saved cards can move to a new system. Often they cannot, and guests will need to re-enter a card.
Make a list of every deposit and prepayment held for future stays, by guest, with the amount and the date it was taken.
Decide how each held deposit will be recorded in the new system so the books still agree with the cash.
Make a list of open balances (money owed to you) and credits (money you owe back).
Do not refund and re-charge guests as a way of moving them. Record the existing payment instead.

6. Rebuild the setup

Create your sites and site types, then check the count against the old system.
Enter rates, seasons, minimum stays, and any long-stay or monthly rates.
Enter taxes and fees, then price a sample stay by hand and compare it with what the new system quotes.
Set cancellation and deposit policies the way they are today, unless you are deliberately changing them.
Copy your confirmation and check-in messages and read them as a guest would.

7. Bring over the future, then check it twice

Enter or import every reservation that arrives after the cutover date.
Compare the two calendars for the next 30 days, site by site.
Check ten reservations end to end: dates, site, rate, amount paid, balance.
Confirm that guests with a stay coming up will receive the right message from the right address.

8. Tell your guests and update your links

Change the booking link on your website, your Google Business profile, your social pages and any listing sites.
Check that the old booking page no longer takes bookings, or points to the new one.
Send a short note to guests with upcoming stays if anything they will see is changing (a new confirmation email, a new check-in link).

9. Train the people who will use it

Give each person their own login and the access their job needs.
Write a one-page cheat sheet: take a booking, check someone in, take a payment, handle a change.
Run two or three practice bookings together before the cutover date.
Name one person staff can ask when something looks wrong.

10. Cutover day

Take a final export from the old system and save it.
Stop new bookings in the old system, and open them in the new one.
Walk the arrivals for the next three days and confirm each is in the new calendar.
Keep your list of held deposits and open balances next to you and tick each one as it is confirmed.

11. The first 30 days

Reconcile payments to your bank deposits weekly, not at month end.
After the first full month, compare revenue and deposits held against the old system for the same period.
Collect questions from staff and guests in one list and fix the pattern, not each instance.
When the month agrees, cancel the old system. Not before.

Where Site Complete fits

If you are weighing Site Complete for an RV park, the demo walks through taking a reservation, checking a guest in, and following the deposit into your books. Bring this checklist and we will go through the parts that matter to your park.

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