Importing customer records

We recommend that importing customer records from another database is done as a three-stage process:

1. Export the records from the donor database into a .csv (comma separated variable) or other file format which can be opened and edited in a spreadsheet application – this can often be done by running a report and saving it as a .csv file;

2. Edit to eliminate errors and redundant records, and ensure completeness and correctness for your new system, and save as a .csv file;

3. Import to Central Accounting from the edited .csv file.

The edited .csv file columns should contain the following data:

  • Column A = customer account code (minimum 3, maximum 9 characters)
  • Column B = customer full name
  • Column C = customer main contact name
  • Column D = customer main telephone number
  • Column E = customer main fax number
  • Column F = customer address line 1
  • Column G = customer address line 2
  • Column H = customer address line 3
  • Column I = customer address line 4
  • Column J = customer post code
  • Column K = customer preferred contact type (enter “Hardcopy” or “E-Mail”)
  • Column L = customer main e-mail address
  • Column M = account status (enter “Credit Account”, “Payment with Order”, “Payment before Dispatch”, “In Dispute”, or “Closed Account”)
  • Column N = customer VAT Number
  • Column O = customer VAT type (enter “UK Standard”, “UK Zero Rate”, “UK Exempt”, “EU Export”, or “Non EU Export” – most UK customers will be “UK Standard”)
  • Column P = sales account (enter “DEFSAL” unless you have already set up additional sales revenue accounts in Central Accounting which you wish to use here)
  • Column Q = enter number of days credit usually allowed (number only)
  • Column R = enter credit limit allowed (£.p)
  • Column S = enter discount normally allowed from list price (e.g. enter 10% as ‘10’)
  • Column T = department (leave blank unless you have already set up departments in Central Accounting)
  • Column U = project (leave blank unless you have already set up projects in Central Accounting)
  • Column V = default currency code for the customer account.

Take care to avoid commas in the record data, e.g. between a street number and name, as this will be taken as two separate pieces of data by the import programme, and will likely cause the import to fail (you may want to export from Central Accounting first and use that as a template, but delete any data before re-importing).

The import process will add records to the existing system records, so take care to only perform this procedure once in order to avoid duplications!