Circlip
Data portability

How to leave.

Most software puts this page behind a support ticket. It is easier to publish it. Your shop is one file, on your PC, in a format anybody can read — and here is exactly how to walk off with it.

Format
SQLite 3
File
shop.circlip
Files to copy
1
Export
Excel, 7 sheets
Permission needed
None
Where it is

One file holds the business

Customers, vehicles, job cards, parts, payments, staff, expenses and your settings are all inside it. Nothing is on our server, because there isn’t one.

%APPDATA%\com.circliphq.com\shop.circlip

Win+R  →  paste  %APPDATA%\com.circliphq.com  →  Enter

Two smaller files usually sit beside it, shop.circlip-wal and shop.circlip-shm. They are working files the database uses while it runs. Close Circlip before you copy, and take all three if they are there.

Four steps

Leaving, in order

  1. Run the export

    Circlip writes a seven-sheet Excel workbook — the one your accountant already accepts. For most people leaving, this is the whole job: it opens anywhere, and it needs no technical help at all.

  2. Copy the file

    Close Circlip, copy shop.circlip onto a stick. That is your complete history, not a summary of it — every job card, every part, every payment, back to your first day.

  3. Open it without us

    It is an ordinary SQLite database. Any SQLite tool will read it, and one command turns the whole thing into plain SQL text that will outlive every program involved, including ours.

    sqlite3 shop.circlip .dump > shop.sql
sqlite3 shop.circlip ".headers on" ".mode csv" \
        "SELECT * FROM job_cards" > job_cards.csv

  4. Tell us nothing

    There is no exit process. No deletion request to submit, no notice period, no call where somebody tries to keep you. You already have everything; we never had a copy.

What’s inside

The tables, published

So you can see what you are taking, and so whoever migrates you can quote for the work before you commit to anything.

vehiclesjob_cardsjob_parts job_labor_clocksbookingsinventory paymentsmechanicssuppliers purchase_orderspo_itemssupplier_payments garage_expensesgarage_incidentsinsurance_claims deferred_servicesdiagnostic_logsapp_settings license_eventsschema_migrations

One thing worth knowing before you write a migration: there is no separate customer table. A shop knows its customers by their car, so the owner’s name and phone number sit on vehicles, keyed by plate_number. Everything else hangs off the job card.

Column-level questions, from you or from whoever you are moving to: [email protected]. We answer them for people on their way out, too.

Exports work even when nothing else does.

A Shop licence never expires, so it can never lock you out. If a licence file is corrupted or an instalment plan is defaulted, Circlip drops to read-only — you can still open every record, print every invoice and run every export. There is no state this software can enter in which your own records are held away from you.

The one-person question

If Circlip ever stops trading

Circlip is built by a small company in Nairobi. It is a fair thing to worry about before you hand over $449, and the answer shouldn’t be a reassuring noise.

The commitment: if Circlip stops trading, a final build of Circlip with the licensing removed will be published free, so every shop running it keeps running it — and this page stays true regardless, because the file was always yours and always on your own machine.