If you’re managing HR for a Canadian SMB, there’s a good chance your current system is a combination of Excel spreadsheets, shared folders, and a very good memory.
Maybe you have one spreadsheet for employee details, another for vacation tracking, one more for performance review notes, and a folder somewhere with signed employment letters. As the saying goes: it works until it doesn’t.
The tipping point usually arrives quietly: a new hire whose onboarding slips through the cracks, a payroll error because a salary change didn’t make it to the right file, a vacation bank that’s off because two people updated the spreadsheet independently. Or it arrives loudly: a privacy audit that reveals your employee data is spread across five unprotected files on a shared network drive.
Whatever brought you here, this guide walks you through what migrating from Excel to an HRIS actually looks like for a Canadian SMB.
Why Excel eventually fails at HR
You’re not alone in relying on it: a Business.com survey of 2,300 HR professionals found that 59% of small businesses still use manual solutions like spreadsheets and paper documents for at least some HR functions, and roughly half of them work at companies with 50+ employees, so this isn’t just a “very small business” problem.
That said, Excel is flexible, familiar, and already paid for. So why does it consistently fail HR teams as organizations grow?
- It doesn’t enforce process. A spreadsheet doesn’t notify anyone when a certification expires. It doesn’t remind managers to complete a performance review. It doesn’t automatically route a vacation request to the right approver. You have to manually check everything, all the time. These are often the first signs you need HR software.
- It doesn’t scale with your people. Managing 5 employees in a spreadsheet is easy. At 30, it’s manageable but risky. At 60, it’s job on its own.
- It creates data silos. Your HR data, your payroll data, and your manager’s notes live in three different places. When they conflict — and they will — you have no single source of truth.
- It’s not secure. Spreadsheets can be downloaded, forwarded, printed, and left on a desk. There’s no audit trail, no access control, no encryption at rest. Under PIPEDA and Quebec’s Law 25, that’s a compliance risk (more on Canadian data residency for HR software below).
- It breaks when people leave. Your Excel HR “system” exists largely in the institutional knowledge of whoever built it. When they leave, the formulas break, the logic disappears, and the next person starts over.
What migrating to an HRIS actually involves
“Migration” sounds technical and intimidating. For most SMBs with 20 to 200 employees, it’s a structured process that takes 4 to 8 weeks — and most of that time is configuration, not heavy lifting. Here’s the shape of it:
- Data audit and prep (weeks 1–2): review your existing records, decide what to import, clean up duplicates and inconsistencies. This is the step most people dread and the one that pays the biggest dividend.
- Platform configuration (weeks 3–4): org chart, absence policies, onboarding checklists, custom fields, permissions — set up to reflect how your organization actually works.
- Training and testing (weeks 5–6): admin training, manager training, employee orientation, plus a test run of your key workflows before anyone goes live.
- Go live (week 7–8, or sooner): credentials go out, remaining employees are added, and your team transitions off Excel for good.
Most SMBs reach full operational comfort within 30 days of go-live. (Want the detailed, step-by-step breakdown of each phase? We cover it in depth in our HR software migration guide.)
Common mistakes to avoid
- Trying to migrate everything at once: Attempting five years of historical performance reviews, certification records, and expense reports alongside your core employee data means you’ll spend months in implementation and never quite finish. Start with what matters most — active employee records and current policies — and add historical data later if it’s genuinely needed.
- Skipping the change management piece: Even the best HR software fails if your managers don’t use it and your employees don’t trust it. A 10-minute video walkthrough sent before go-live can prevent a week of “how do I log in?” tickets.
- Choosing a platform that doesn’t fit your payroll setup: In Canada, your HR software and payroll software need to exchange data — confirm integration with your provider before committing. The alternative is re-entering every payroll change manually, which defeats the purpose.
- Underestimating the time your team will need: Budget roughly 2–3 hours per week from your main HR contact for the duration of the project.
- Choosing a US-based platform without thinking about data residency: Storing employee data on US servers without a Privacy Impact Assessment creates compliance risk under PIPEDA and Law 25. Verify your vendor hosts data in Canada.
What to look for in an implementation partner
The software matters, but so does the experience of getting set up. Look for a vendor that:
- Assigns a dedicated implementation coach
- Provides a structured project plan with clear milestones
- Hosts data on Canadian servers
- Includes training in the implementation fee, not billed hourly
- Stays available after go-live, especially your first 30 days
Worth asking before signing: how many implementation sessions are included, who’s your dedicated point of contact, what happens if you hit issues after go-live, and whether you can speak to a similar-sized customer.
What the process looks like with Folks
For most SMBs migrating from Excel to Folks: weeks 1–2 for data prep, weeks 3–4 for configuration, week 5 for training, and weeks 6–7 for go-live and first active use. The implementation includes hours of dedicated support from a Canada-based implementation specialist, data hosted on Canadian servers, and out-of-the-box integrations with major Canadian payroll providers.
We’ve helped hundreds of Canadian organizations make this transition — from 10-employee startups to 300-person mid-sized companies. The most common thing we hear after go-live? “We waited too long.”
A real migration case: from BambooHR to Folks
A ~100-employee food-service organization had been using BambooHR for a few years. BambooHR, like ADP, is a well-established North American platform, but with limited Canadian-specific grounding. Like many “captive” customers, the business case for staying was built more on inertia than satisfaction.
What triggered the change was the ability to build a quantified business case: the Folks team worked with the HR director to put real numbers on hours lost to manual HR tasks and the cost of potential non-compliance, versus the expected gain with a better-fit tool. Having concrete figures to bring to the leadership team changed the dynamic of the decision.
The migration itself ran in phases, with a short data-overlap period and close support through the first two post-migration payroll cycles. The lesson that stuck: the fear of migrating was bigger than the migration itself. The projected timeline was one month, so reality matched the plan!
Ready to make the switch?
You don’t have to have everything figured out before starting the conversation. Most of our clients come to us with a spreadsheet, a vague idea of what they need, and a strong desire to stop doing things the way they’ve been doing them. That’s enough to get started.
→ Check out our HR software migration guide for a step-by-step breakdown of prepping your data and planning your go-live.
→ Book a free 30-minute demo — we’ll show you what Folks looks like for an organization your size, and answer any questions about the implementation process.
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