What do I check in the spreadsheet first?

The spelling of company names on the people sheet: a person whose company matches no account you can see is not imported. Also check that each salesperson named is still an active user.

Someone with the Import data control, plus Add and Edit on accounts or contacts. Delete is needed to undo.

What if a salesperson in my file has left the company?

That row is an error, because the owner must be an active user. Name a current colleague, or leave the cell blank to make the record yours.

Import customers from a spreadsheet

Copy for AI

Your customers live in a spreadsheet and you do not want to type them in again. Data import brings them in, checks every row before saving and lets you undo the import.

How to do it

Split the file in two. One sheet of companies, one row each; one sheet of people, with a column naming each person’s company exactly as it is spelt on the company sheet. Put the headers in the top row, and each list on the first sheet of its own file.
Use plain headers. “Company”, “UEN”, “Country”, “Tel”, “Handphone”, “Email” and “Salesperson” are matched automatically. A salesperson cell takes an active user’s login, email or name; a blank one makes the record yours.
Import companies first. Open System settings → Data import, choose Accounts, select Continue with Accounts and drop the file on the page. Check each column under Import as, then select Preview import.
Read the preview. Rows under Duplicates match an existing record or an earlier row and are skipped; rows under Needs attention have an error or a warning. Select the import button, such as Import 118 rows, and keep the page open until Import finished appears.
Then import the people as Contacts the same way. Their company column links each person to the account you just imported.
Fix what failed. Error file (.csv) holds only the rows with errors and the reason for each. Correct them and import that file.

If something went wrong, select Undo beside the import in Import history, then Undo import. Records nobody has changed or used since are deleted.

Why it helps

A file of up to 5,000 rows goes in as one import, and nothing is saved until you have seen the preview. Each row is checked by the same rules as the form, so a typo is fixed in the spreadsheet in seconds rather than in the records afterwards.

Example

Lim & Co keeps 120 clients in clients.xlsx and 260 people in people.csv. Mei Tan imports the clients first: the preview shows To create 118 and Skipped duplicates 2, because Harbour Café and one other client each appear twice. Then she imports the people. Three rows spell the café “Harbor Cafe”, which matches no account, so they land in the Error file (.csv); she corrects the spelling and imports them.

Common questions

What do I check in the spreadsheet first? The spelling of company names on the people sheet: a person whose company matches no account you can see is not imported. Also check that each salesperson named is still an active user.
Who can import? Someone with the Import data control, plus Add and Edit on accounts or contacts. Delete is needed to undo.
What if a salesperson in my file has left the company? That row is an error, because the owner must be an active user. Name a current colleague, or leave the cell blank to make the record yours.