How to migrate from Excel to HR software without losing data in 2026

Almost 7 out of 10 Spanish SMEs still manage their workforce in Excel. Until 2025 this was a valid, if precarious, method; since the new ley de fichaje digital 2026 (2026 digital clock-in law) came into force, it no longer is. If that describes your situation and you’re worried about losing information during migration, this guide answers the usual questions and explains how to do it in 72 hours with zero data loss.

Why Excel no longer works in 2026

Excel served a purpose: it was the “free” option that saved you from taking on a digitalisation project. But in 2026 it has three problems that have become critical:

1. It breaks the new digital clock-in law. The regulation requires unique identification, tamper-proof timestamping, traceability of corrections and offline operation. Excel meets none of these.
2. It creates invisible errors. A University of Hawaii study estimates that 88% of spreadsheets contain an undetected error. In payroll or holiday tracking, a small mistake translates into money lost or unhappy employees.
3. It doesn’t scale. When you go from 20 to 50 employees, Excel becomes ungovernable: multiple versions, broken formulas, freezes on opening.

What data you’ll migrate

First things first: take stock of what you have. A typical “Excel + shared folders” setup contains:

• Basic employee data: name, DNI (national ID), address, phone, email, role, start date, professional category.
• Employment contracts: signed PDF plus annexes.
• Payslips: monthly PDFs per employee.
• Holidays and absences: days taken, days pending, type (holiday/sick leave/leave of absence).
• Clock-in records: if you keep them in Excel, the history of entries and exits.
• Certificates and training: occupational risk prevention, subsidised courses, collective agreements.
• Whistleblowing channel (if applicable): register of reports received and their resolutions.

The 72-hour migration process

Day 0 — Preparation (a few hours on your side)

1. Download the templates LapsoWork sends you after you book the demo or sign up for the service.
2. Export to CSV your employee spreadsheet. In Excel: Save As → CSV UTF-8 (comma delimited).
3. Organise the documents: create one folder per employee with contracts, payslips and certificates. Name them with the same identifier (e.g. E001_Maria_Gomez/).
4. Gather the policies: applicable collective agreement, public holidays per site, types of leave, working calendar.

Day 1 — Setup and configuration (our team)

5. Our team imports the employee CSV and validates it with you record by record.
6. We configure your collective agreement, public holidays, leave types and roles (administrator, team manager, employee).
7. We create the platform logins and give you a 1-hour training session by video call.

Day 2 — Document upload

8. We upload your historical contracts and payslips in batches, automatically indexed by employee.
9. We set up expiry alerts (training, medical check-ups, fixed-term contracts).
10. We activate the time-tracking module with timestamping live from the very first clock-in.

Day 3 — Employee activation

11. You send the welcome email (editable template) to all employees explaining the change.
12. Bulk download of the iOS/Android app (QR code in the email).
13. Each employee verifies their data and starts clocking in.

After 72 hours, your company is digitalised and legally compliant. The old Excel data is kept as an immutable backup for 12 months in case you want to consult it.

Common migration mistakes (and how to avoid them)

1. Not cleaning up Excel before migrating

Duplicates, blank spaces or badly formatted dates get carried over. Solution: spend 1-2 hours removing duplicate rows, standardising names (Surname, First name) and checking the date format (DD/MM/YYYY).

2. Migrating the entire history without prioritising

If you’ve been on Excel for 10 years, you don’t need to migrate everything. Solution: migrate the current year plus the full previous year. Older history stays archived as CSV/ZIP on a drive.

3. Not communicating with employees

A change like this without explanation breeds resistance. Solution: a clear email from management explaining the why (ley de fichaje 2026), the when (exact date of the switch) and a 10-question FAQ.

4. Ignoring sensitive data

Some HR folders contain sick leave with diagnoses, payroll data and appraisals. These are special category data under the RGPD (the Spanish implementation of the GDPR). Solution: encrypt those documents and restrict access to the HR manager and the employee concerned.

5. Not keeping the old Excel

Once migrated, the temptation is to delete it. Solution: keep it on a drive with a 6-year retention policy (a commercial-law obligation) even if you no longer use it.

Can you migrate without stopping operations?

Yes. The 72-hour process does not interrupt day-to-day operations: employees keep working as normal. The only visible changes are:

• On day 2, they stop clocking in on paper/Excel and start clocking in via app/web.
• The following month, they receive their digitally, biometrically signed payslip instead of a PDF by email.
• They request holidays through the app instead of by WhatsApp or email.

Risk: during the first 2 weeks, some employees will ask questions. Having a designated person to resolve queries speeds up adoption.

Frequently asked questions

What if my data is in Google Sheets rather than Excel? The process is identical. You export the sheet to CSV via File → Download → CSV and send it to us.

What happens if we find errors in the history during migration? We document them together and correct them in the new system. LapsoWork keeps a traceability record of every correction with date, author and reason (mandatory under the new ley de fichaje 2026).

Can I keep using Excel for some things after migrating? You can, but there’s no point. LapsoWork exports any data to Excel if you want to run parallel reports. Duplicating the work is exactly what we want to avoid.

How much does the migration cost? With LapsoWork, migrating from Excel or from another HR platform is free. It’s included when you sign up for any plan.

How long does it take if my company has more than 100 employees? From 3 to 7 working days, depending on document volume. The bottleneck isn’t the data, it’s the manual review to make sure each historical contract is correctly assigned.

Conclusion

Migrating from Excel to HR software isn’t a months-long project: with the right team it takes 3 working days with no data loss. In 2026 it’s no longer an option, it’s a legal obligation — and an opportunity to reclaim the 4-7 hours a week you currently lose to admin tasks.

If you want to make the switch this month, you can request the free 30-day demo or check out LapsoWork’s pricing (from €2/employee/month, no lock-in). We provide the technical team and the templates; you provide the data.

If you still have questions about the new digital clock-in law of 2026 or how much the change would cost you, we have dedicated articles that answer all of the above.