Here's a playbook you can run over a weekend. The fastest path is the direct import: at Settings → Integrations → ShopMonkey, paste a ShopMonkey API key and click Import everything to pull parts, customers, vehicles, invoices, and upcoming appointments (set up at least one bay or installer first so appointments have somewhere to land). The CSV steps below are the fallback.
Saturday morning: export your data from ShopMonkey
In ShopMonkey, go to Settings → Data Export. Request a full export — customers, vehicles, services, RO history. ShopMonkey emails the CSV bundle within 30-60 minutes.
Saturday afternoon: clean the data
Open the customer CSV in a spreadsheet. Look for:
- Duplicates (same phone or email with slight name variations)
- Test records ("Test Customer", "John Doe", phone 555-555-5555)
- Customers with no contact info — these can't be imported usefully
Delete or merge duplicates. Drop test records. Save as UTF-8 CSV.
Saturday evening: import into SalesThumb
In SalesThumb, go to Customers → Import (not a Settings page). Upload your cleaned customer CSV — up to 5,000 customers per file. Pick "ShopMonkey" as the source platform (it's tagged so your Referrals report shows where each customer was migrated from), then SalesThumb auto-guesses the column mapping from your headers; review and adjust the "Map your columns" step, check the 5-row preview, then confirm. It's not a background job — the import runs while you wait on that page.
Sunday: services + first practice quotes
ShopMonkey's service catalog doesn't translate cleanly because of how it models RO line items. Instead of importing, recreate your top 20 services manually using the SalesThumb service builder. This usually takes 30-60 minutes and gives you a chance to clean up old service names that have drifted over time.
Once services are set up, run 3-5 practice quotes against imported customers. Test the SMS delivery, payment link, and customer portal experience.
Sunday evening: switch over
Cancel new bookings in ShopMonkey for next week. Forward your old public booking URL to your new SalesThumb booking page (or update your website link directly). Existing ShopMonkey appointments can be re-created in SalesThumb if needed, or run to completion in the old system.
Common questions
Q: Will I lose my historical invoices? A: Not if you use the direct ShopMonkey import (Settings → Integrations → ShopMonkey → Import everything) — it brings over invoices along with customers and vehicles, and it's safe to run more than once. The CSV importer on Customers → Import only brings customers and vehicles. You may want to keep ShopMonkey accessible for a while for warranty and invoice lookups on old jobs. If you have a large or unusual dataset and want to talk through options, reach out to hello@salesthumb.com before you cancel ShopMonkey.
Q: What about scheduled appointments? A: The direct ShopMonkey import brings over upcoming appointments once you have at least one bay or installer set up. Or run them to completion in ShopMonkey and only book new ones in SalesThumb.
Q: What about payments? A: Payment processing moves to SalesThumb's own payment connection — you'll set that up during onboarding. The direct import brings over the payments recorded on imported invoices as history, but processor statements and payout records stay with ShopMonkey's processor. Keep ShopMonkey accessible read-only if you need to pull old statements later.
Need help? Reach out to hello@salesthumb.com.