Importing your data from SimplePractice

Moving to Ltrl from SimplePractice? You can bring your client records, appointment history, clinical notes, documents, and more — all in one upload. This guide walks you through exporting your data from SimplePractice, uploading it to Ltrl, and what to expect along the way.

Before you start

SimplePractice access. You need Account Owner or practice manager access to create data exports and run reports.
Set your timezone in Ltrl. Go to Settings → Practice and confirm your timezone. SimplePractice exports times without a timezone label, so Ltrl needs to know yours to place appointments correctly. The import will ask you to confirm this before uploading.
Plan for time. Exporting takes a few minutes; uploading depends on your file size and internet speed. A large practice with years of records may have a ZIP file in the tens of gigabytes.
Keep your SimplePractice export. Hold onto your original files until you've verified everything in Ltrl. Ltrl deletes your upload from its servers after import — your local copy is your backup.

Step 1: Export your Complete data

In SimplePractice, go to Settings → Practice → Data export.
Select Complete export. This is the one that includes clinical records, documents, billing, and contacts — not Sessions or Contacts alone.
SimplePractice will ask if you want to set a password for the ZIP file. We recommend setting one, but it's not required — the import handles both.
SimplePractice prepares your export and emails you when it's ready. Download links expire after one week.
If you set a password, note it down. You'll enter it in Ltrl during upload.

Step 2: Export the Client details report

Go to Reports → Client details.
Set the Status filter to all statuses — not just Active. If you leave it on the default, inactive and prospective clients won't be included.
Turn Include Contacts on.
Click Export.

This report gives Ltrl the roster of your clients with their contact details, status, and assigned clinician. It also carries each client's next upcoming appointment — Ltrl can turn that into a real booking during review. Without this report, clients can still be identified from the export, but they'll need more review and won't have a status.

Step 3: Export the Appointment Status report

Go to Reports → Appointment Status.
Set the date range to cover your full practice history — as far back as it goes through today.
Set the billing filter to All.
Turn Include Documentation on.
Turn Include Insurance off. (If Include Insurance is on, the file will have duplicate column names and the import won't be able to read it.)
Click Export.

A note about filters: SimplePractice remembers your last filter selection on this page. If you've used these reports before, double-check that the settings match what's listed above before exporting.

This report is your appointment history — dates, CPT codes, fees, and note status. Without it, Ltrl can still import appointments that have a progress note or memo, but you'll lose the rest of your appointment history.

Step 4: Export the Attendance report

Go to Reports → Attendance.
Set the date range to cover the same period as your Appointment Status report. There's no "all time" option here, so pick the earliest date your practice has records.
Click Export.

This report tells Ltrl which appointments were attended, late-cancelled, cancelled, or no-shows. Without it, every appointment is marked as attended.

Step 5: Upload to Ltrl

In Ltrl, go to Settings → Import data.
Select SimplePractice as your source.
Confirm your practice timezone.
You'll see four drop zones:
- Complete data export (ZIP) — required
- Client details report (CSV) — recommended
- Appointment Status report (CSV) — recommended
- Attendance report (CSV) — recommended
Drag each file into its drop zone. Ltrl checks each CSV's column headers when you drop it, so if you put the wrong report in a slot, you'll see an error before the upload starts.
If your ZIP is password-protected, enter the password in the password field. If your export doesn't have a password, leave it blank.
Click Start upload. Large files upload in the background — you'll see progress with speed and time remaining. You can pause and resume, and if your connection drops, the upload picks up where it left off.

Step 6: Review and confirm

Once your files are processed, you'll see a summary of everything Ltrl found:

Clients — new clients to create and any that match people already in your Ltrl practice
Appointments — count, date range, and any that need your input
Documents — grouped by type (progress notes, chart notes, forms, consents, uploads, and more)
Warnings — anything that looked unusual, like a fee that didn't add up
Rejected rows — any rows from the reports that couldn't be read, with the reason

If you have a group practice, you'll also map provider names from SimplePractice to team members in Ltrl.

Some items may need your attention before you can confirm. These appear in a Needs review section grouped by type:

Possible duplicate — an imported client has the same name as someone already in your practice. You can Link to existing (the import attaches records to your existing client) or Create new (a separate client is created). If you don't choose, a new client is created.
Upcoming appointment — time not in the export — the Client details report lists a client's next appointment date, but SimplePractice doesn't include the time. You can set a time to create a confirmed booking, or skip it. If you don't choose, the appointment is skipped.
Same-name clients — two clients with the same name where Ltrl can't tell which one a document or appointment belongs to. You pick the right one.

When you're ready, click Confirm. The confirm screen shows the counts and any unresolved groups with a checkbox for each — for example, "3 appointments will be skipped" — so you know exactly what the defaults will do. You'll re-enter your password — or re-authenticate with Google or Microsoft if that's how you sign in — and your 2FA code if you use one. You'll also acknowledge that you're keeping your SimplePractice export as a backup.

After confirming, there is no cancel — but you can undo the import within 7 days if something isn't right.

What gets imported

Ltrl imports the following from your SimplePractice export:

Clients and contacts — names, date of birth, email, and client status (active, inactive, or prospective), from the Client details report and vCards. Gender, phone and address come from the Client details report when the vCard doesn't have them.
Past appointments — dates, times, CPT billing codes, and fees from the Appointment Status report; attendance status (attended, late-cancelled, no-show) from the Attendance report; duration and end time from the matching progress note. Each appointment is named for its service — the CPT code and description — not a generic label.
One upcoming appointment per client — the Client details report carries each client's next appointment date. When you set a time during review, it becomes a confirmed booking in Ltrl.
Progress notes — each note becomes a chart on its appointment, with the template's sections, the diagnoses listed on the note, and the signature as signed in SimplePractice (unsigned notes import as drafts)
Chart notes, administrative notes, and appointment memos — these appear in the client's Notes tab as practice notes
Diagnoses — the ICD-10 codes on notes, treatment plans, and superbills, as one diagnosis list per client with first-seen and last-seen dates
Treatment plans — library and custom plans, with their diagnoses, sections, and signature
Assessment scores — GAD-7 and the other scored measures, with per-item responses, total score, and severity
Form responses — intake forms, screeners, and releases, question by question, with the client's signature where there was one
Signed practice documents — consents, policies, and notices, with the signer and timestamp
Superbill service lines — linked to the appointment they bill
Billing history (optional — you can leave it out on the confirm screen) — each SimplePractice invoice becomes an invoice in Ltrl: unpaid invoices show as open balances, and the payments on your statements (cash, check, card) as recorded payments. Balances are shown, never collected — Ltrl never charges a client for an imported balance, and imported billing is not shown to clients in their portal.
Secure message threads (optional) — these appear in Messages, in a section marked Imported from SimplePractice, as read-only conversations with their original dates. The transcript document stays attached too.
Every PDF and file — attached as a document in the client's record and grouped by type, whether or not its contents could be extracted
Uploaded files — photos, scanned documents, and any other files you stored in SimplePractice

Imported notes and documents are visible to your team only. To share a document with a client through the portal, use the existing share action on the document.

A note on billing. SimplePractice invoice PDFs are snapshots from the day each invoice was issued, so a payment recorded later appears on your statements, not on the invoice. Ltrl uses your statements as the record of payments. If a client paid an invoice after your most recent statement, that payment may not be in the import — check the client's balance after importing and record the payment in Ltrl if needed.

What's not imported

Insurance details — carrier, plan, member ID, and insurance-specific payments. Ltrl v1 is built for self-pay practices; insurance import is planned. Insurance columns in your reports are read and noted, never silently dropped.
Future appointments — the SimplePractice export does not include them. The one exception: the Client details report carries each client's next appointment date, and you can turn that into a booking by setting its time during review.
Cancelled appointments — counted and listed during review, but not created as bookings.
Recurring appointment rules and availability
Custom note and form templates — the content of your notes and forms is imported, but SimplePractice's template structure (the blank form, the note layout) is not re-created as an editable Ltrl template.

How long does it take?

Uploading depends on your file size and internet connection. A large export can take a while on a slower connection. You can close the tab and come back — progress is saved.
Processing and importing — minutes for a small practice, longer for years of records. We email you at each step: when your import is ready for review, and again when it's complete.

What happens to your upload

Your upload is deleted from Ltrl's servers after import. Once the import finishes and passes verification, the raw files you uploaded are permanently removed. Only your imported records remain.
You'll receive a deletion receipt — the completion page shows the date and time your upload was deleted.
If you don't confirm within 7 days, the import is automatically cancelled and your upload is deleted. The same applies if the import fails and you don't retry within 7 days.

Undo

You can undo a completed import for 7 days. While the window is open, each imported client's record shows a banner with the date it closes.

Undo removes everything the import created — with one exception. A client who has used their account since the import, or whom you've added records to (signed in, paid, a lab order, a note you wrote), is kept with what you added. Only the imported records on that client are removed. Clients the import matched to existing records keep their accounts and lose only the imported link.

The undo screen names every affected record, and anything clinical — a signed note you edited since the import, for example — you confirm one by one.

Re-importing a newer export

If you export from SimplePractice again later and import the new export into the same Ltrl practice, Ltrl compares each record to what's already there:

Unchanged — left alone. No duplicate is created.
Updated in the export — updated in Ltrl, but only if you haven't edited that record in Ltrl since the last import. If you have, your version is kept.
Your edits preserved — if you changed a record in Ltrl (edited a note, updated a client's phone number), your version always wins. These are counted as "kept your edits" in the summary.
Absent from the new export — never deleted from Ltrl. A client or record that was in your first export but not your second stays in Ltrl and is counted.
Changed PDF — if a document changed in SimplePractice (same record, new file), the new version is attached and the earlier one is marked superseded.
Nothing is deleted during a re-import. Records are added or updated, never removed.

A client that was kept during a previous undo is matched on the next import, not duplicated.

Troubleshooting

Upload stalls or fails partway

Your upload saves progress as it goes. Refresh the page, select the same file again, and the upload resumes from where it stopped — completed parts aren't re-sent. If it keeps stalling, try a wired connection or a less congested network.

Wrong ZIP password

If you entered the wrong password, the import will pause and show an "Enter ZIP password" prompt. Re-enter the correct password and the import retries without re-uploading. You can find your ZIP password on the SimplePractice Data export page where you originally created the export.

If you exported without a password but Ltrl asks for one (or vice versa), check that you downloaded the right export — SimplePractice keeps previous exports on the Data export page, and an older one may have different password settings.

Wrong file in a drop zone

Ltrl checks each CSV's column headers when you drop it. If you put the wrong report in a slot — for example, the Attendance report in the Appointment Status slot — you'll see an error before the upload starts. Remove it and drop the correct file.

Appointment report with the wrong columns

If you exported the Appointment Status report with Include Insurance turned on, the file will have duplicate column names (a second Charge, Paid, and Unpaid column for insurance). Ltrl can't read a file with duplicate headers and will show an error asking you to re-export the report with Include Insurance turned off.

Rejected rows

Some rows in your reports may not import — for example, a row with a date Ltrl can't parse, or a billing-code cell in an unexpected format. These appear in a downloadable Rejected rows CSV on the review screen, with each row's original data and the reason it was rejected. Most rejections are formatting issues that resolve by re-exporting the report.

Documents attached but not recognized

Every file in your export is attached to the client's record. Ltrl also classifies each document by type (progress note, chart note, assessment, consent, and so on). If a document shows as "unclassified," it means Ltrl attached the PDF but couldn't determine what kind of SimplePractice record it came from. This happens when:

The document is a scan, photo, or a PDF created outside SimplePractice (not a SimplePractice template). These are always attached as-is.
SimplePractice changed a template's layout. These are rare — Ltrl monitors for them — and the document is still fully readable in the client's record.

Appointments that ask you to pick between two same-name clients

If two of your clients have the same name (for example, a parent and child), some appointment rows may not resolve automatically. Ltrl shows both candidates with their date of birth and asks you to pick the right one. In many cases, Ltrl resolves this on its own using the progress note or superbill for that date — you'll only see the ones it couldn't figure out.