Moving from Excel to a CRM without losing your history
Move from Excel to a CRM without losing your history: clean up your customer file, map columns, import, check the result and deal with duplicates.
In this article
Short answer
Moving from Excel to a CRM works without losing history if you go step by step: collect your files, clean them up, map columns to fields, run a trial import and then check the result. Most of the work is cleaning up duplicate customers and free text, not the import itself.
By the makers of stiptUpdated July 27, 20266 min read
Why does Excel stall at some point?
Excel does not stall on the list itself, but on everything around it. One customer sits in three files: the customer list, the schedule and the quotes folder. A status lives in a colour only its maker understands. Whoever calls a customer cannot see what was emailed last week. And as soon as two people work in the same file, whoever saves last wins.
That is the moment to switch. Not because Excel is bad, but because your work has more connections than a table can carry. The worry that follows is almost always the same: will we lose our history? That is manageable, if you do it in the right order.
How to switch, step by step.
- 1Collect
Find every file with customer data: the customer list, the schedule, the quotes folder and exports from an old package. Decide what you want to see again: customers, open jobs, completed jobs, quotes.
- 2Clean up
Remove empty rows, test entries and duplicates and make formats consistent: phone numbers, postcodes, dates, names. This takes the most time and is the most important work.
- 3Map columns
Decide per column which field the value ends up in. Also write down which status in your file matches which status in the system.
- 4Trial import
Import a small part first, for example twenty customers with their jobs, and look at the result in the system itself.
- 5Import
Move the rest in one go, at a quiet moment. Make sure the import does not send emails, reminders or invitations to old customers.
- 6Check and pick a date
Count the totals, open ten customers you know well and search for a few familiar names. Then pick a date from which you only work in the new system and set the Excel file to read-only.
What has to be clean before you import
- One row per job, with the customer recognisable by customer number or email address, so a customer with three jobs becomes one customer
- Name, street, house number, postcode and city in separate columns
- Phone numbers in one format and email addresses in lower case, without spaces
- One date format, and amounts as numbers, without a euro sign or text such as 'approx.' or 'tbd'
- A fixed list for every free-text status: 'quote out', 'Quote sent' and 'sent quote' become one status
- Colours that carry meaning moved to a column of their own, because formatting does not come along
- No merged cells, hidden columns or sub-headings in the middle of the list
- Loose remarks in a single column, so they can land in one field on the job
Which column becomes which field?
| Column in Excel | Becomes in the CRM | Watch out |
|---|---|---|
| Customer name | Contact, person or company | Company and contact person often share one cell: split them |
| Email and phone | Details on the contact | Handy for finding duplicates, but you do not leave out a customer without an email address |
| Job address | Location on the record | The job address can differ from the customer's address |
| Free-text status | Status in the status flow | Make a list in which every variant points to one status |
| Quote or amount | Quote or field on the record | Amount as a number, and keep the quote number |
| Remarks | Text field on the record | Put the date in the text itself, because without a date in your file the system cannot know when something happened |
How do you deal with duplicate customers?
One customer with three jobs is not a duplicate: it is one customer with three records. A real duplicate is the same person under two spellings, such as J. Jansen and Jan Jansen, or the same customer with a new email address. Find them before you import. Sort by email address, then by phone number, then by postcode with house number, and look at what ends up side by side with your own eyes.
For every duplicate, pick one customer to keep and attach the other's jobs to it. Also check how the new system handles this. In stipt, a manually added contact with an email address that already exists is rejected, and duplicate contacts that do exist can be merged, so conversations go to the contact you keep.
What happens to your automatic emails during an import?
An import is more than copying. If the new system has automatic emails, reminders or invitations, importing a thousand old jobs can produce a thousand emails. So always ask a supplier whether an import is silent, or whether you choose what goes out.
At stipt, a team member prepares the import for you. You email your file, stipt sets up statuses, fields and lead sources with you, imports and reviews the result together with you. That can cover customers and contacts, records with status and lead source, quotes and appointments, from a CSV or Excel file. There is a check overview beforehand and afterwards the whole import can be undone in one go. By default an import is silent: no email, rule or scheduling fires for imported records, until the next real event.
What is better left in Excel?
Not everything has to come along. Every messy record you move, you take into your new system with you. Leave behind what you never open: leads from years ago that never went anywhere, test entries, duplicate lists and intermediate calculations. Keep the old file as an archive, read-only, with the switch date in its name.
Take what you need daily: all customers with contact details, all open jobs with status, and completed jobs for which you still expect maintenance, warranty claims or a follow-up quote. Photos and PDFs from old jobs do not have to be imported. Store them on the record from now on and look up old files when a customer asks.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import my Excel customer file into a CRM?
Yes, most CRM packages accept CSV or Excel files. It comes down to preparation: one row per customer or job, separate columns for name, address and contact details, and fixed values for statuses. Also ask the supplier whether the import is done for you or whether you have to map the columns yourself.
Do I lose history when I switch?
You lose what is not in a column: colours, cell formatting, formulas and cell comments. What is in columns, such as customers, statuses, amounts and remarks, comes along. So move any meaning that currently lives in a colour into a column of its own beforehand.
Do I have to move everything at once?
No. Move at least all customers and all open jobs, and decide per year of completed jobs whether you need them. The old file stays available as a read-only archive, so whatever you end up missing can be looked up or added in a second round.
What if my Excel file is messy?
Then cleaning up is the first project, and that is good news: every error you fix in Excel now is one you do not have to repair in your CRM later. Start with duplicate customers and free-text statuses, because those cause the most trouble after the import.
How long do I keep using Excel next to the new system?
As briefly as possible. Pick a fixed switch date, work only in the new system from that day and set the Excel file to read-only. Two systems side by side produce two half truths after a few weeks.
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