How to migrate from
WorkflowMax to Hour Cap
There is no painful data export. Pick a cutover date, finish open jobs, connect Xero and your contacts sync automatically. This guide walks you through every step, from first connect to your first draft invoice.
When to cut over
Hour Cap does not have a direct WorkflowMax importer, and most teams do not need one. Instead of a risky bulk export, you draw a clean line in time.
Pick a cutover date, ideally a month boundary. Finish or invoice your open jobs in WorkflowMax up to that date. From the next day, track all new time in Hour Cap. Nothing is in two places at once, and there is no half-migrated data to reconcile.
Your accounting records stay in Xero either way, so the only thing changing is where you track time and build invoices.
What comes across, and what you set up
Automatic on Xero connect
- Contacts sync and match to clients by name
- Missing customers are created locally for you
- Sold items and tax rates
- Revenue accounts and branding themes
- Tracking categories from Xero
You set up in Hour Cap
- Clients you bill that are not Xero contacts yet
- Projects under each client
- Billable rates via the cascade
- Retainers, if you bill on a budget of hours
- Team members and their roles
The migration, step by step
Six steps from sign-up to tracking your first billable hour.
-
1
Connect Xero
Sign up for Hour Cap and connect your Xero organisation. The Xero integration is on the Team plan, which is the plan most migrating teams want. The connection uses OAuth2 and refreshes itself, so you authorise once.
-
2
Let contacts sync
On connect, Hour Cap syncs your Xero contacts and matches them to clients by name. Missing customers are created locally. Items, tax rates, revenue accounts, branding themes and tracking categories sync at the same time, so you are not re-keying reference data.
-
3
Set up clients and projects
Confirm your synced clients and add any that were not in Xero. Create a project under each client for the work you bill. On the Free plan only the oldest active project is usable, so most teams move to Team here for unlimited projects.
-
4
Set billable rates
Rates resolve through a cascade: project rate first, then the member rate, then your organisation default. Set the org default once, then override per project or per member where the rate differs. If all three are unset, the rate is zero.
-
5
Recreate retainers
If you billed monthly retainers in WorkflowMax, recreate them in Hour Cap against the right project. Choose weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or a custom number of days, and set the hours budget and alert threshold so you can see hours used and remaining.
-
6
Start tracking time
From your cutover date, track time with the timer or enter durations manually. The timer auto-splits across midnight into per-day entries, and manual entries accept formats like 1h30m, 1:30, 8h or 1.5.
Your first invoice in Hour Cap
When it is time to bill, select the time entries you want to invoice and create an invoice. It is queued as pending, then pushed to Xero as a draft. Nothing is auto-authorised or sent, so you always review the draft in Xero and send it from there with your branding theme applied.
Choose how line items group with a per-organisation setting: per entry (the default), per project, per date or per team member. Descriptions are always preserved, joined with a semicolon when entries are grouped onto one line.
If a push fails, the error is stored on the invoice and you can retry. Voiding a draft unlinks its entries so you can invoice them again. You can also invoice past uninvoiced retainer periods when you catch up.
Data you keep in Xero either way
The switch from WorkflowMax does not touch your accounting. Your contacts, invoices, payments and reports live in Xero, and they stay exactly where they are.
Hour Cap reads your Xero reference data and writes new draft invoices into the same Xero organisation. That means the move is low risk: you are changing your time tracking and invoice-building tool, not your books.
Common questions
Is there a WorkflowMax data importer in Hour Cap?
No. Hour Cap does not have a direct WorkflowMax importer. Most teams do not need one. You pick a cutover date, finish open jobs in WorkflowMax, and start fresh in Hour Cap. Your Xero contacts sync automatically when you connect Xero.
What carries across automatically?
When you connect Xero, Hour Cap syncs your contacts and matches them to clients by name, and creates missing customers locally. It also syncs sold items, tax rates, revenue accounts, branding themes and tracking categories. Clients, projects and billable rates are set up in Hour Cap.
When should I cut over from WorkflowMax?
Pick a clear date. Finish or invoice open jobs in WorkflowMax up to that date, then start tracking new time in Hour Cap from the next day. A month boundary is usually the cleanest cutover.
How do I send my first invoice in Hour Cap?
Select the time entries to bill and create an invoice. It is queued as pending, then pushed to Xero as a draft. You choose how lines are grouped: by entry, project, date or member. Review the draft in Xero and send it from there.
Will my accounting history be affected?
No. Your invoices and accounting records stay in Xero regardless of which tool you track time in. Hour Cap pushes new draft invoices into the same Xero organisation you already use.
Start your migration today
Connect Xero, let your contacts sync, and track your first billable hour in minutes. The Xero integration is on the Team plan; the Free plan covers a single user.
Comparison note: competitor features and pricing were researched on a best-effort basis in June 2026 and can change at any time. We aim to be accurate and fair, but details may be out of date, so always confirm the latest information on the vendor's own website before making a decision. Hour Cap capabilities described here reflect the product at the time of writing.