IMPORTING CUSTOMERS AND CONTACTS
If you have customers that have different regional or international branches and therefore the same billing address but different delivery addresses, you can import them to Business Finance Assistant by following the instructions below.
Using a CSV file to import your customers and contacts is a fast way to get your customers into Business Finance Assistant.
- Your file should be formatted as a table and must include a header that defines the fields
- Import files must be in CSV (Comma-Separated values) format
- Some headers are mandatory; for example, if you import a company then you must have 'Company Name', if you import individuals then you must have 'Last Name'
- Country information MUST be imported using the ISO ALPHA 2 codes. United Kingdom should be entered as 'GB'
- MAKING A CSV FILE BUSINESS FINANCE ASSISTANT CAN UNDERSTAND
Attached to this article is an example template for importing customers with multiple recipients into Business Finance Assistant. Using a program like Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, Google Sheets, or OpenOffice Calc, build a spreadsheet that matches the template below.
Any data that doesn't fit this import template cannot be imported into Business Finance Assistant.
The template attached to this article (Template Import Customers Multiple Recipients.csv) shows an example of how to import customers, both businesses and individuals, and the contacts for those businesses and individuals. This template will help with the import and enable you to import one customer with multiple recipients so that the company's billing address remains the same but the delivery address depends on which 'recipient' is selected from within the invoice template.
In the attached example:
Company: Champion
Contact: Chris and Andrew (within Champion)
Champion Address will be 53 South Street
Chris' address will be 23 Gresham
If no contact or 'Andrew' is chosen as the billing contact (labelled recipient on the invoice template), it will use 53 South Street as the billing address. However, if 'Chris' is chosen as the billing contact, it will use 23 Gresham Street as the address.
Please note: the import file also contains some useful information at the bottom of the file. Before importing your records, please remove all lines after your last row of customer data to get rid of this information. If the lines are not removed before import, Business Finance Assistant will produce an error message and won't let you import your file.
After building your spreadsheet, ensure you save it as a CSV format as shown below.
- IMPORTING YOUR CSV FILE INTO BUSINESS FINANCE ASSISTANT
Within the 'Customers' section of Business Finance Email, select the [︙] button and select 'Import Customers'.
After the import is successful you will see them in the list of customers within the Business Finance Assistant.