Carrying over balances from your old system

Switching to Gastrora from Excel or other software? Here's how to carry over your employees' current balances cleanly — overtime, remaining vacation, start date.

Concept

What is the onboarding cut-off date?

The onboarding cut-off date is the day from which Gastrora calculates the balances itself. Everything before the cut-off date comes from your old system — you enter the closing balances once, and Gastrora carries them forward automatically from the following day.

Example: You start with Gastrora on 1 July. Cut-off date = 30 June. For each employee you enter: flexitime balance, remaining vacation, rest day balance as at 30.06. From 1 July, Gastrora calculates as normal.

Preparation

The figures you need per employee

Get the balances as at the cut-off date for each employee from your old system (or from Excel). You need:

Start date

The actual first working day with you — even if it was years ago. Important for years of service and vacation entitlement.

Cut-off date carry-over

The last day of the old system. Usually the day before you start with Gastrora — ideally the end of a month, so the transition is clean.

Flexitime balance (HH:MM, +/−)

Over-/undertime in hours and minutes. Positive = the employee has hours in credit. Negative = the employee has not yet worked their target hours. Enter it as HH:MM, e.g. +3:00 for 3h overtime or -2:00 for a 2h deficit.

Open vacation days

Days the employee is still entitled to. Important: calculate the current year's entitlement pro rata up to the cut-off date, minus the days already taken.

Open rest days / Open holidays (optional)

If rest days or public holidays are still open at the time of the switch, you can carry them over. Otherwise every employee starts at zero and accrues from the cut-off date.

Entry

Where to enter the balances

The employee form has an expandable section «Carry-over balance at Gastrora start (optional)» — that's where you enter the cut-off date and balances. Fill it in straight away when adding the employee; for existing employees you can add it at any time via «Edit».

Employee form with the «Carry-over balance at Gastrora start (optional)» section expanded — The section is **optional** and collapsed at first — click the arrow to open the fields. Only fill it in if you are switching from another system mid-year and have open balances.

⚠️

ImportantOnce the cut-off date is entered, Gastrora overwrites all months BEFORE the cut-off date with the balances you entered. So if you accidentally recorded data in Gastrora before the cut-off date, it will be lost. Set the cut-off date first, THEN plan shifts.

Check

Are the values correct?

After entering them, open Time tracking and check the Year-end balances for the employee: the balance shown as at the cut-off date should match your entry exactly. If not — enter the cut-off date and balance again.

💡

Pilot phase recommendedSwitch at the start of a month (e.g. the 1st of the following month). Run the old system in parallel for the first week — that way you can cross-check that the balances develop correctly.