Migrate from Paymo to Microsoft Project

Paymo Projects map directly to Microsoft Project files or Project Plan 3/5 cloud projects. We preserve project name, status (Active/Completed/Archived), client association (as a custom Project field since Microsoft Project has no native Client object), budget, hourly rate, and start/due dates. Project templates from Paymo Small Office and Business tiers migrate as standard projects that the customer's admin can copy within Microsoft Project to reuse the structure.

Paymo Task Lists are ordered named groupings that sit between Project and Tasks in the hierarchy. Microsoft Project has no standalone Task List object — grouping is achieved through Summary Tasks with WBS numbering. We create a Summary Task for each Paymo Task List, preserve the Task List name and order, and nest the child Tasks beneath it. The outline level (indentation depth) is derived from the Task List nesting depth in Paymo. Task List-level metadata that has no Microsoft Project equivalent is stored in a custom field.

Paymo Tasks with name, description, start/due dates, estimated hours, assignees, and priority map to Microsoft Project Tasks with Duration, Start, Finish, and Work fields. Task dependencies (Finish-to-Start by default) are created using the predecessor field in Microsoft Project. Priority maps to a custom Number field since Microsoft Project's Priority field uses a 1-10 numeric scale not a label system. Assignees map to Resources via the Resource Assignments table after User-to-Resource reconciliation.

Paymo Time Entries linked to Tasks map the logged duration to the Task Work field in Microsoft Project for planning purposes. The billable flag, hourly rate, and client association do not have native fields in Microsoft Project — we export these as a structured CSV with Task Name, Date, Duration, Hourly Rate, Billable Flag, and Client, which the customer imports into QuickBooks, NetSuite, or another accounting platform. Microsoft Project has no native time-entry logging UI; time tracking for billing purposes must live outside the scheduling tool.

Paymo Milestones map to Microsoft Project Milestones (zero-duration tasks). Milestone names and dates are preserved. Paymo displays milestones after the Task List they belong to, not at individual task endpoints — this display positioning is a Paymo-specific convention. Microsoft Project enforces task-level milestone anchoring, so milestone positions may appear shifted relative to the original Paymo Gantt view. We note any such shifts in the migration report for the customer's PMO to review.

Microsoft Project has no native Client or Account object. We map Paymo Clients to a custom Project-level text field (e.g., ClientName__c) on each project. Client contact information is preserved in a supplementary contacts export as structured CSV. If the customer uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 for CRM, we can map Client records to Dynamics Contacts and link them via a custom lookup field — this requires configuration beyond the standard migration scope.

Paymo Users with name, email, and role map to Microsoft Project Resources. We resolve by email match against the destination resource pool. Paymo's Owner field on tasks maps to the Resource Name in Microsoft Project. Paymo roles (Admin, Member, Client) have no direct Microsoft Project equivalent and are documented as a custom Resource field. Any Paymo User without a matching resource in the destination is flagged in the reconciliation report for the customer's admin to provision before final import.

Paymo Custom Workflows (introduced March 2026, Small Office and Business plans) define per-project Kanban status columns. Microsoft Project has a fixed Status field with four options: Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Deferred, Waiting on someone else. We map each Paymo project workflow status set to the closest Microsoft Project Status value and flag any Paymo statuses without a clean equivalent. The customer receives a written mapping table per project showing which Paymo statuses collapsed into which Microsoft Project status, for PMO review and stakeholder sign-off.

Paymo Invoices generated from Time Entries — with client, line items, totals, tax, and payment status — have no native destination in Microsoft Project's schema. Microsoft Project has no accounts-receivable or invoice capability. We perform a full invoice export as structured CSV or JSON including Invoice Number, Date, Client, Line Items, Subtotal, Tax, Total, and Payment Status, for import into QuickBooks, NetSuite, or the customer's accounting platform of record. The billing workflow does not migrate; the customer's admin rebuilds the invoice generation process in the accounting tool.

Paymo Discussion threads at the project level migrate as Notes attached to the parent Project in Microsoft Project. We preserve the chronological thread order and author attribution where available. Microsoft Project does not have a threaded discussion feature, so the flattened Notes format is the closest available representation. This is a content migration, not a feature migration — the discussion workflow does not continue in Microsoft Project.

Paymo ghost bookings (Business-plan automatic workload scheduling showing team availability and overbooking on a visual timeline) have no direct Microsoft Project equivalent. Microsoft Project's Resource Sheet and Resource Usage view serve capacity planning but use a different model based on resource calendars and assignment hours rather than Paymo's automatic availability calculation. We export ghost booking configurations and employee availability data as structured records in the supplementary export, flagging that capacity planning requires manual resource calendar setup in Microsoft Project.