Creating a Customer Import File

ReceivablesPro import files must be in .csv (comma delimited text) format or pipe delimited text format. All fields, including date fields must be formatted as text fields. All credit card account numbers must be entered as number strings without any dashes or spaces.

You can use column headers in your file. (You can also upload files without file headers.) You do not need to use the ReceivablesPro field names in your file header row. Use field names you will easily recognize, since you will be mapping these fields to ReceivablesPro system fields during the import process.

Do not use commas in any of the fields when creating a .csv import file. Doing so will corrupt your data and cause values to be mapped to the wrong fields. For example, you should never enter a company name as “ABC Company, Inc.” Instead, enter “ABC Company Inc.”

For more information on proper formatting of ReceivablesPro import files, see Appendix C: Import Requirements. For details specific to Customer imports, see Customer Import Requirements in Appendix C

When creating new customers you must include all required fields for a Customer Record. For a complete list and description of all fields available in a new customer import see Customer Import Requirements in Appendix C

Mapping First Name and Last Name is required for a Customer Record. All other fields are optional.
NOTE: If you are planning to use the system for email invoicing, be sure to import Email address. If you will be processing payments for the customer, you are required to send transaction receipts. If you include Email address, the system can do this for you. If you do not, be certain to collect alternate contact information so that you can send receipts in some other way.

The following are optional fields that can be included (See Customer Import Requirements in Appendix C for detailed field specifications):

Billing Address 1
Billing Address 2
City
State/Province
Zip/Postal Code
Country
NOTE: If this field is not mapped, or the row does not include a value for it, it will default to “USA.”
Phone and Alt. Phone
Email and Alt. Email
Website
Shipping Address and Contact Information
Primary Credit Card Account
Primary Bank Account
Note
Customer Custom Fields

Account #
NOTE: If you are importing customers from another system, and you want to update that system with information from ReceivablesPro, use that system’s key (or unique customer identification number) in the Account # field.

When entering numeric values in a Customer import file, such as zip codes, credit card numbers, bank account routing numbers and bank account numbers, you should enter them as text strings. To do this, enter an apostrophe (‘) before the number. This tells Excel to treat the number as a text string, and it will not remove leading zeros or change any component of the string.

For example, to enter the zip code 07666 enter: ‘07666

To enter the credit card number 5454545454545454, enter: ‘5454545454545454.

A sample new customer import file created in Excel is shown below:

The easiest way to create and save your Customer import file is to create it in Excel, and then export it as a .csv file. To do this, use the “save as” function in Excel, and select “comma delimited csv” as the file type.

Once you save an Excel file as a .csv file, it is very important that you do not open or edit the .csv file in Excel prior to importing it into ReceivablesPro—doing this will corrupt the file and cause import errors.

If you need to make a change to the data in your file, open the Excel file, edit the file and then use the “save as” function again to save the edited file in .csv format.

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