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There is no bulk file importer. You create clients and projects by hand. That is the honest answer, and it is less painful than it sounds. Most businesses have fewer than 20 active clients, and the rebuild is an afternoon. This guide is the fast path.
The example: Northwind Studio rebuilds three clients and four projects. Maya Ellis (Owner) does the setup with Priya Raman (Project Manager).

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What you can bring in

Check Import your data for the current options before you begin.
Getting out is a different story. An Owner can export the whole workspace in open formats, and any report exports as CSV, Excel or PDF. See Export your data.

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The order to build in

Build top down. Each layer needs the one above it to exist first.
Rates come before any hour is tracked. A time entry snapshots the rate that applied on its date, so hours logged before a rate exists have no billable value. See Rate snapshots.

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Do it in one sitting

1

Write your list down first

Before you open the product, write out what you are rebuilding. A page of notes turns two hours of context-switching into forty minutes of typing.For each client: name, contact, currency, default rate. For each project: client, budget kind and amount, who works on it.Northwind’s list:Three clients, four projects. This is the real size of most agencies.
2

Only bring in what is alive

The strongest filter: if nobody has tracked time against it in three months, do not recreate it.A finished project belongs in your archive export, not in a fresh workspace. You will never open it, and it makes every list longer for everyone forever.
3

Set the workspace basics and invite the people

Currency, timezone, formats. Then invite everyone with the right role first time.→ General settings · Invite a member · Onboard a new employee
4

Set every rate before anything else

Billable and cost, per person.→ Set a person rate · Cost rates
If most of your work is at one price, set that price as each person’s own billing rate and only override the exceptions. The most specific rate wins: task, then project member, then person, then client. There is no workspace-wide default rate. See How rates are chosen.
5

Create all the clients in one pass

Do every client before you start on projects. Switching between the two screens is what makes this feel long.Set the client’s default rate now if that account has a negotiated price.→ Create a client · Client rates · Client details
6

Create the projects, one per engagement

Not one per client. One per engagement.Bluebird Coffee has a fixed price redesign and a monthly retainer. Those are two projects. Merging them means you can never tell which one pays.→ Create a project · Client projects
7

Add project members

Who works on each job. This controls what people can pick when they track time.→ Project members · Project visibility
8

Set the budgets

While the numbers are still in front of you from your list.Money budgets for fixed price work. Hours budgets for retainers and capacity deals.→ Set a project budget · Hours vs money budgets · Recurring retainers
9

Set up sections on each project

Sections are the stages a task moves through, and they are defined per project. Use the same set across similar projects so people learn one pattern.→ Project sections
10

Create only the open tasks

Do not recreate a year of finished tasks. Create what is genuinely still to do, put an estimate on each one, and assign it.Once they exist, bulk actions let you set section, assignee, tags or dates across many at once, which is much faster than editing them one by one.→ Create a task · Task estimates · Bulk actions
11

Create your tags, and keep the list short

Tags are workspace-wide. Five or six that people remember beat thirty nobody uses.→ Tags settings · Task tags
12

Check it before anyone tracks an hour

Five minutes now saves a month of wrong numbers.→ Invoice numbering

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Bringing historical hours in

Only do this for a project that is still open and still being measured against a budget. Add one summary entry per person, not every original entry. Put a note on each entry such as “Carried forward from previous system”, approve them, and the budget bar starts from the truth instead of from zero. → Add time manually · Approve a timesheet
Never invoice carried-forward time. It was already billed elsewhere. Note it clearly and exclude it from your first invoice.

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How long it takes

The slow part is deciding what to leave behind. The typing is fast.

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Common questions

No. There is no bulk file importer today. Create clients from the clients page. See Import your data for the current options.
Set up one project the way you want it – sections, members, budget shape – and use it as the pattern you follow for the rest. See Project settings.
No. Keep them in your archive export from the old tool. A fresh workspace full of dead projects makes every list slower for everyone.
Almost everything is recoverable. Archiving hides finished work but keeps it reportable. Trash is a staging area you can restore from. See Archive, trash and delete.
Yes. An Owner can export the whole workspace in open formats. See Export your data.
No. Keep the PDFs from your old system. What matters is that your numbering continues where the old sequence stopped. See Invoice numbering.

Switch from another tool

The full cutover plan this fits inside.

Set up a new workspace

Everything that comes before the clients.

Track work for a client

Run the first job on the new structure.

Onboard a new employee

Adding the people.

Setup for an agency

The structure most agencies land on.