# How long does it take to switch POS? Downtime and cost > https://rundoo.ai/resources/guides/switching-pos-downtime-and-timeline/ [Guides](/resources/guides/index.md) /Switching Switching # How long does it take to switch POS? Downtime and cost A well-run POS switch does not close your store, because almost all of the work happens while the old system keeps ringing sales and the cutover runs overnight, so here are the phases of a switch, what makes each one longer, how to pick a go-live date, and the switching costs owners forget to budget. [![Titus Capilnean](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/titus-capilnean.jpeg)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tituscapilnean/) [Titus Capilnean](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tituscapilnean/), Head of Marketing October 27, 2026 Last updated October 27, 2026 A well-run POS switch should not close your store, not even for a single Saturday. Nearly all of the work happens in the weeks before cutover, while your current system keeps checking out contractors and walk-ins, and the cutover itself happens overnight between closing one day and opening the next. How long the lead-up takes depends mostly on your data, your number of locations, and your training plan, not on the software alone. ## The phases of a switch Every provider names these a little differently, but the shape of the project is the same whether you run a paint store in Ohio or a farm and feed store in Alberta. Here's what each phase involves, what makes it faster or slower, and who at your store gets pulled in. | Phase | What happens | What drives how long it takes | Who at the store is involved | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Decide and sign | You compare systems, watch demos built around your scenarios (a charge-account sale with a PO, a special order, a board-foot quote), and pick one. | How many systems you demo and how quickly your decision-makers can get in the same room. | Owner, manager, bookkeeper if you have one | | Kickoff | The new provider collects your hardware list, internet details, payment setup, accounting connection, vendor integrations, contacts, and remote access to your current system. | How fast you can round up logins and account numbers, and whether a vendor charges or takes time to turn on its side of an integration. | Owner or a designated admin | | Data pull and test load | Products, customers, vendors, sales history, and balances come out of the old system and load into a test environment. | How clean your data is and how hard the old system makes extraction. | Mostly the provider; you answer questions | | First look at your data | You review the migrated data and flag what's wrong: pricing tiers, tax exemptions, customer balances, departments. | How much cleanup the data needs and how many people have to agree on the fixes. | Owner, admin, bookkeeper | | Training | Staff learn the new system, usually with one admin trained first as the point person who trains everyone else. | Headcount, comfort with new screens, and whether sessions can happen outside your busiest hours. | Everyone who touches the register | | Hardware setup | Computers, scanners, printers, cash boxes, and card readers get connected, tested, and placed at the counter. | What you can keep versus what you must replace, plus shipping time on anything new. | Admin and the provider's team | | Cutover night | After close, the final data pull runs overnight so day one starts with current numbers. | The size of your database and how long the final pull takes. | The provider's team; you sleep | | Go-live day | You open on the new system, ideally with someone from the vendor on the phone before the doors unlock. | How quiet a day you picked and how many extra hands are on the counter. | Everyone | | First month-end | If you run charge accounts, the first statement run on the new system is the real graduation. | Where your go-live date lands in the month. | Admin and bookkeeper | ## What makes a switch take longer The single biggest variable is the shape of your data. If your current system carries years of negative on-hand counts, duplicate customer records (three versions of the same contractor, each spelled a little differently), tangled departments, and units of measure that drifted over time, every one of those knots has to be combed out before go-live, and combing takes calendar time. Charge-account balances deserve special care here, because the balance on each account should reconcile to your aging before you cut over. Few things sour a contractor relationship faster than a wrong statement. Locations multiply the work. A second or third store means another data set, another counter's worth of hardware, and another crew to train, and those crews rarely sit in the same room at the same time. Extraction is the wild card. Some systems, especially older server-based ones, hand over their data politely, and others guard it like a trade secret. Ask early whether the new provider has pulled from your specific system before and what the plan is if they can't. Then there's the waiting you don't control. A vendor integration can involve a fee or a queue on the vendor's side, and new card readers ship on a carrier's schedule, not yours. And if you're the owner, the only trainer, and also the fastest cashier, every phase queues behind one person's calendar, which is why naming a point person matters so much. Finally, starting a switch in the middle of your busy season stretches everything, because nobody has an hour for a training session when the parking lot is full. ## Will my store have to close? No, not for a well-run switch. The final data pull happens after you close on cutover night, the new system gets loaded and checked overnight, and you open the next morning on the new one. Measure twice, cut once is the whole philosophy: all the measuring happens in the weeks before, so the cut itself takes a single night. That said, go-live day deserves a plan. Pick a quiet weekday rather than a Saturday, put an extra person on the counter so a slow first transaction doesn't back up the line, and line up a test customer, a patient regular or a family member, so the first sales of the day are practice instead of pressure. If the new system is cloud-based, have an internet backup like a hotspot ready to go, and if your old vendor's terms allow it, keep read access to the old system for a few weeks so you can look up an old invoice while the new one becomes second nature. ## Picking your go-live date Work around your peak. For a garden center that's spring, for a feed store it's planting and the fall run, for a paint store it's paint season, and every store knows its own version of the week when the whole county shows up at once. Avoid the week you've scheduled a physical inventory count, and steer clear of the days around month-end if you run charge accounts, because you don't want your first statement run to be anyone's first rodeo. Going live early in a month is the sweet spot, since it gives your staff a few weeks of reps before statements go out. If your accountant needs accurate starting balances, plan a [physical inventory count](/resources/guides/physical-inventory-count/index.md) before go-live so the books open clean. And if you've been meaning to restructure your pricing or categories, do it in the old system the week before cutover, not on go-live morning. The best advice on this we've heard is short enough to fit on a sticky note: [on day one, change nothing](/insights/on-day-1-change-nothing/index.md). ## What a switch costs The full budget picture (subscription, payments, hardware, the works) lives in our [guide to POS system cost](/resources/guides/pos-system-cost/index.md), but the switching-specific costs are the ones owners forget to plan for. Most of them are time rather than invoices. | Cost line | What to budget | | --- | --- | | New subscription and payments setup | The monthly subscription plus setting up your payment accounts; get the full pricing model in writing | | Hardware | Keyboards, mice, full-page printers, and cash boxes often carry over; computers, barcode scanners, thermal printers, and card readers may not | | Data migration and setup fees | Ask whether migration and setup are included in the subscription or billed separately | | Staff training hours | Paid hours for sessions and practice time (worked example below) | | Overlap on the old system | Old software contracts and server maintenance plans that keep billing until you cancel them | | Early termination or buyout | Read your old POS contract and your payment processing agreement for exit terms before you set a date | | First-week slowdown | Transactions run slower while staff build speed, so schedule lighter days and extra coverage | ### A worked example (illustrative) Say five staff members each attend four training sessions of one hour. That's 20 paid hours, and at an illustrative $18 an hour it comes to $360 in payroll, plus whatever you choose to pay for homework time in the sandbox. These figures are illustrative, so swap in your own wages and headcount, but the shape of the math holds: training is a real line item, and it's cheaper than a chaotic go-live. ## Questions to ask any vendor before you sign * Who runs my implementation, and have they worked in a store like mine? * Can you pull my data out of my current system, and what happens if you can't? * Will I get a test environment loaded with my real data to practice in? * What hardware can I keep, and what do I have to buy? * When does the final data pull happen, and how current will my numbers be on day one? * Who is on the phone with me on go-live morning? * How long do you stay with me after go-live, and what does "done" look like? * What happens if the internet drops in the middle of a sale? ## How a switch to Rundoo runs Since you're on our site, here's how we handle it. When you sign, you get a dedicated implementation manager, and almost all of ours have worked at a supply store (paint, hardware, or farm and feed), so you won't spend the kickoff call explaining what a charge account is. We pull your products, customers, vendors, historical sales, inventory balances, and customer balances from your current system, which we can't promise for every system ever sold but manage over 90% of the time, and you practice in a test environment loaded with that real data. All of the test data is deleted and re-pulled the night before go-live, so day one starts with current numbers. Most of the hardware you own keeps working, including keyboards, mice, full-page printers, and cash boxes, and the one requirement is new Stripe S710 card readers that come from Rundoo. One admin at your store becomes the point person, and we train the trainer across four sessions: system unveil, daily fundamentals, the admin side, and hardware setup. Rundoo is cloud-based with no offline mode, so we ask for a wired connection and a hotspot as backup. On go-live morning your implementation manager gets on a call about 30 minutes before opening to run a final check of balances, statement settings, pricing tiers, tax exemptions, and inventory, and then stays with you until the store is steady, usually about two weeks or through your first end-of-month statement run if you run charge accounts, whichever comes later. ## Where to go from here If your next question is what moves (and how it's verified before you trust it), read our guide on [what transfers in a POS data migration](/resources/guides/pos-data-migration-what-transfers/index.md). And when you're ready to plan the move itself, the [switch guides](/switch/index.md) cover the rest of the road. Share Topics [Switching](/resources/guides/index.md#choosing-a-pos) [Product](/resources/guides/index.md#choosing-a-pos) [← All guides](/resources/guides/index.md) ## Frequently asked questions How long does it take to switch POS systems? It depends less on the software than on your data, your number of locations, and your training plan. Every switch runs through the same phases: kickoff, a data pull and test load, a review of the migrated data, staff training, hardware setup, an overnight cutover, go-live day, and the first month-end. Clean data, one location, and a named point person at the store shorten it, while duplicate customers, negative on-hand counts, several stores, a system that is hard to extract from, or a start in the middle of your busy season stretch it. Ask each vendor for its typical timeline and what it depends on before you sign. Will my store have to close to switch POS? Not for a well-run switch. The preparation happens while your current system keeps ringing sales, the final data pull runs overnight after you close, and you open the next morning on the new system. Plan go-live for a quiet weekday rather than a Saturday, put an extra person on the counter, and have an internet backup such as a hotspot ready if the new system runs in the cloud. How much does it cost to switch POS systems? Beyond the new subscription, payments setup, and any hardware you have to replace, the switching-specific costs are mostly time: paid training hours, any months of overlap on old software or server maintenance contracts, early termination terms in your old POS or payment processing agreement, and a slower first week at the counter. Five staff in four one-hour training sessions is 20 paid hours, or $360 at an illustrative $18 an hour. Ask every vendor whether data migration and setup are included or billed separately. When is the best time to switch POS systems? Outside your peak season, away from a scheduled physical inventory count, and early in a month if you run charge accounts, so staff have a few weeks on the new system before the first statement run. Garden centers usually avoid spring, feed stores avoid planting and the fall run, and paint stores avoid paint season. Make any pricing or category changes in the old system the week before cutover, not on go-live day. ## Find out what Rundoo can do for your business Learn how Rundoo can help you save time, money and hassle running your business. [Book a demo](/signup/index.md) ! ## See Rundoo in action [Product ### Tour the platform POS, inventory, payments, and AI for independent supply stores, in one system.](/product/index.md) [Customers ### Read customer stories See how real paint, hardware, farm, garden, and lumber stores run on Rundoo.](/clients/index.md) ## Keep reading [![Lumber yard POS and inventory software](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/lumber-yard-pos-and-inventory-software-photo.jpg) Product ### Lumber yard POS and inventory software A 2x10 is bought by the unit, stocked by the piece, quoted per MBF and sold as fourteen pieces plus a cut, so here are the eleven things a yard needs from its POS and inventory software that a hardware POS never had to do, with a test for each.](/resources/guides/lumber-yard-pos-and-inventory-software/index.md) [![The best POS systems for lumberyards in 2026](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/best-pos-for-lumber-yards-photo.jpg) Product ### The best POS systems for lumberyards in 2026 A buyer's guide to lumberyard POS systems in 2026, from Epicor BisTrack, ECI Spruce, and DMSi Agility to Flitch, GenetiQ, and Rundoo, with a plain answer on which kind of yard each one fits.](/resources/guides/best-pos-for-lumber-yards/index.md) [![QuickBooks POS discontinued: what to switch to in 2026](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/quickbooks-pos-discontinued-what-to-switch-to-photo.jpg) Switching ### QuickBooks POS discontinued: what to switch to in 2026 Intuit discontinued QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale on October 3, 2023, and it still opens but gets no patches, support, or payments, so here is how a supply store picks a replacement that keeps the books in QuickBooks.](/resources/guides/quickbooks-pos-discontinued-what-to-switch-to/index.md)