Switching guide

How to export your members from Zen Planner

Your member list comes out of Zen Planner as a report you download as a CSV file. Payment details are a separate question. Here's what's documented, what isn't, and how to bring your members into BeltManager.

Researched November 7, 2026.

A note on sources

Zen Planner's own public site says its reports can be exported to Excel or emailed [1]. We couldn't find a public Zen Planner help article with export steps, so the steps below come from switching guides published by other software companies [2][3]. Menu names may differ in your account.

Export your member list

The most recent guide we found, Spark Membership's (dated October 1, 2026) [2], describes these steps:

Sign in with your main (master) login. Go to My Reports → Members in the left sidebar and click + New Report. Choose People as the report type.
Click Edit Report Settings, select the fields you want, then click Refresh Report.
Clear any active filters, refresh, then click the download icon and choose CSV.

An older guide from Triib (February 7, 2020) [3] describes the same report from Dashboard → All People, choosing first name, last name, birth date, email, phone and status in Edit Report Settings. Whichever route you see, make sure birth date is included: BeltManager needs it for every student.

Trim the file to current members

A People report can include leads and former members as well as current ones. Sort by the status column and delete anyone who doesn't train with you now: BeltManager imports students as active or trial. Add a Group column for the program each member attends and a Current belt column if your report doesn't include rank.

Payment data: ask Zen Planner in writing

Spark's guide [2] says plainly that financial data is not included in the standard Zen Planner export, and that how card data can move depends on which payment processor your account uses. We couldn't find a Zen Planner page that says what it provides or what, if anything, it charges for a payment-data export.

So before you give notice, ask Zen Planner in writing what payment data it will release, to whom, and at what cost. You may not need it for BeltManager: card details never move by CSV, and families add their own card when BeltManager card billing is available to your school (more below).

Before you cancel Zen Planner: check your contract and cancellation terms in writing, and keep billing running there until your families are set up in BeltManager.

Import the file into BeltManager

First, tidy the file

Every student needs a date of birth. It's how BeltManager knows who is under 18 and needs a guardian.The import asks whether your file's dates are Month/Day/Year or Day/Month/Year, and starts on Month/Day/Year for a US school. It refuses a file that is clearly in the other order, and shows each student's date of birth as it will be saved, so check the preview before you import.
Students under 18 need a guardian on the same row: a guardian name, plus a guardian email or phone. Siblings who share a guardian end up linked to the same guardian record.
Phone numbers need the country code. Write them as +1 555 010 0123. A number without +1 is refused. If your phone column isn't in that format, set it to "Don't import" and add numbers later.
Status can only be "active" or "trial". Remove students who have left, or set the status column to "Don't import" and everyone comes in as active.
Only bring what you need. Medical notes import if you map them, but leave out anything you don't need to run your classes safely.
Size: up to 1,000 students, 50 columns and 2 MB per file. Split a bigger file in two.

Then import it

Sign in to BeltManager as the school owner and open Students → Import.
Choose your Zen Planner CSV file. Want to see the expected layout first? Click Download template.
Match your columns. BeltManager recognizes these headings automatically, and common variations such as "Parent email", "Belt", "Rank" or "Class":
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth
- Email
- Phone
- Guardian name
- Guardian email
- Guardian phone
- Group
- Current belt
- Status
- Medical notes
- Emergency contact name
- Emergency contact phone
First name, Last name and Date of birth are required. Set any other column to "Don't import".
Check every row. The preview shows what will happen to each student: created, updated, skipped or an error. A student already in BeltManager with the same name and date of birth is skipped, unless you tick "Update students who are already in BeltManager". If any row has an error, nothing is saved: fix those rows and check again.
Import. A Group name you don't have yet becomes a new group, and its students become its regulars. A Current belt you don't have yet is added to your belts: if you teach more than one style, write it as Karate: Yellow so BeltManager knows which ladder it belongs to.
Changed your mind? You can undo an import within 24 hours from the import history on the same page.

Card details never move by CSV

No spreadsheet carries a family's saved card, and BeltManager never takes card numbers from a file. Card billing in BeltManager switches on in April 2027 for UK schools; for US schools it's coming in 2027. When it's available to your school, families add their card themselves. Keep your Zen Planner billing running until you're ready to switch it off.

Stuck on a column? Send us the file's column headings (not the data) and we'll tell you how to map them.

Get started free

Sources

All pages accessed November 7, 2026. Menus and labels change; if a step doesn't match what you see, the vendor's own help pages are the authority.

Zen Planner: Gym Reporting & Dashboards (Zen Planner's own page)
Spark Membership: Exporting from ZenPlanner (third-party guide, dated October 1, 2026)
Triib: How to export from Zen Planner (third-party guide, dated February 7, 2020)

Running a school in the US? See BeltManager for US martial arts schools.