Migrating from Coacha

Moving your club from Coacha to Kolva Club is a two-track process: bring your data across in one go, then move parent Direct Debit mandates over without re-collecting consent. This guide walks you through both, plus the cutover day we'll run together.

What you can expect

Athletes, parents, and teams import in a single step using AI-driven column mapping — you don't need to rename your Coacha columns first.
Sessions import with their day-of-week and timing where Coacha provides it.
Coaches and admins import as staff with the right role.
Direct Debit mandates transfer from your old GoCardless account to your Kolva-connected account — parents do nothing.
Welcome emails go out automatically with a one-time link for each parent to set their own password. We never email plain-text passwords.

What doesn't come across (yet)

Coacha holds historical data we don't pull in on day one. This is a deliberate clean-slate choice — most clubs want fresh ledgers and audit trails in their new system rather than imported approximations.

Past attendance stays in your Coacha archive. Kolva starts tracking from your first session on the platform.
Past invoices and payment receipts stay in Coacha. Active DD mandates carry the live picture forward.
Internal notes and chat history — if you have a few you want to keep, copy them across manually.

You can keep your Coacha account read-only for a few months as a reference archive while everyone settles in.

The migration in four phases

Export your club data from Coacha (you, ~30 minutes).
Smart Import into Kolva (together with us, ~30 minutes including review).
GoCardless mandate transition (us with GoCardless, 2–4 weeks in the background).
Cutover day — switch off Coacha collections, switch on Kolva collections, with us on hand.

Phase 1 — Export from Coacha

From your Coacha admin, export the following as CSV:

Members / children — usually under Members → Export. Include parent contact details if they're separate.
Groups / teams — the team rosters with member-to-team links.
Sessions / classes — recurring schedule with day, time, location.
Staff / coaches — if Coacha exports these separately.

Don't worry about cleaning the column names — the importer handles Coacha's naming out of the box (it recognises "Child Name", "Parent/Guardian Email", "Group", "DOB" in DD/MM/YYYY format, and so on).

Phase 2 — Smart Import into Kolva

Smart Import upload screen with drag-and-drop area — The upload screen accepts CSV, TSV, and Excel files.

AI analysis

The importer runs your file through Claude Sonnet to identify columns (athletes, parents, teams, sessions, staff) and flag anything ambiguous. This usually takes 10–30 seconds.

Discovery summary

You'll see a count of what the importer found: athletes, parents, teams, sessions, staff. Confidence scores tell you which categories are clean and which might need a closer look.

Spot-checks (only if needed)

For ambiguous columns (e.g. a phone column that could belong to either the parent or the athlete), the importer asks a quick yes/no question rather than guessing. Most Coacha exports skip this step entirely.

Category review

The review screen lets you scan every athlete, parent, team, and session before committing. Toggle individual rows off if there's anything you don't want to import.

Welcome emails

Just above the import button is the Send welcome emails to new parents and staff toggle (visible in the screenshot above), on by default. When the import finishes, every newly-created parent and staff member gets a branded email with a one-time link to set their own password. The link is valid for seven days. We never email plain-text passwords.

Existing parents (matched by email to accounts already in your tenant) won't be re-emailed. If you'd rather send invites later — for example you want to brief parents in advance — turn the toggle off and use the per-user resend on each profile when you're ready.

Import and success

Click Import N records. The flow runs in dependency order (teams → parents → athletes → staff → sessions), then sends the welcome emails.

Import success screen showing counts and email status — Per-category counts plus a clear note on emails sent / failed / skipped.

Anything that couldn't be imported (bad date format, missing required field) is downloadable as an error CSV. You can fix and re-upload — the importer skips records that already exist.

Phase 3 — GoCardless mandate transition

Once your Kolva club is connected to GoCardless (see the GoCardless guide), you have two routes for moving your existing parent mandates across.

Option A — Mandate transfer (recommended for active clubs)

GoCardless transfers your existing Coacha-side mandates to your Kolva-connected creditor account. Parents do nothing. The same Direct Debit keeps collecting, just with Kolva as the gateway.

We submit a signed transfer request to GoCardless on your behalf.
BACS rules require a 14-day customer notification — we send a templated email to all affected parents with the new collection name.
End-to-end timing: typically 2–4 weeks.

This is the right choice for clubs with hundreds of active mandates. Drop-off is zero because parents aren't asked to do anything.

Option B — Re-collect mandates

Each parent sets up a fresh mandate in Kolva. Quick to start (no GoCardless paperwork on your end), but you'll lose a tail of parents who never get round to it.

We send a one-click setup link to every parent the moment your import lands.
Parents complete the BACS mandate in two minutes via Open Banking.
You stay on Coacha collection until each parent's new mandate is live, then switch them over.

Stripe as a backup

If GoCardless approval is delayed, Kolva also takes Direct Debit through Stripe. It's a slightly different mandate flow but the parent experience is similar. Your imported data and the migration timeline don't change — only the rail underneath.

Phase 4 — Cutover day

We'll book a 1–2 hour window together for the actual switchover. On the day:

Pause Coacha collections — in your Coacha admin, stop the next billing run.
Run the Smart Import with us on a video call, working through any spot-checks live.
Verify a sample — we open three parent accounts at random and check the data looks right (children, team, contact details).
Send welcome emails — either during the import (toggle on) or right after when you're ready.
Start GoCardless transfer — if Option A, we kick off the request that day. If Option B, the setup links go out with the welcome emails.
Soft monitor for a week — any parent who hits a snag, we sort directly. Most issues are forgotten passwords or wrong emails in the original Coacha export.

After the migration

What parents see

A welcome email from your club asking them to set a password. Once they do, they log into their parent portal and see their child(ren), upcoming sessions, and any outstanding payments. If a Direct Debit was transferred, it carries on collecting as normal — they don't need to set anything up.

Common parent questions

"Why did I get an email asking me to set a password?" — Your club has moved to Kolva. The link is a one-time invite to create your account.
"Will my Direct Debit still work?" — Yes. We're transferring it across. You'll see the collection name change to your club's GoCardless trading name.
"What happens to my Coacha login?" — You don't need it any more. Your club admin will close it down once everyone's settled in Kolva.

Re-running an import

If you find missing rows after the fact, re-run Smart Import with the corrected file. Existing athletes and parents are matched and skipped — only new records are added. Welcome emails only fire for the new parents.