PlumbingBossPro Blog — Plumbing Software

CSV Import: Moving Your Plumbing Customer List Into New Software

The hardest part of switching to plumbing software is not learning the screens. It is getting years of customers out of wherever they live now and into the new system without retyping them one at a time. For most shops, that list is in a spreadsheet, an old program that can export, or a phone full of contacts. CSV import is how it moves.

Why Import Instead of Starting Fresh

Many of your best customers will end up on monthly statements or yearly plans, like the clients in Monthly Statements for Property Managers and Restaurants: One Plumbing Bill for Every Address. You want all of them in from day one, not added slowly as they call.

Starting with an empty system sounds clean, but it means the first time a regular customer calls, the office has to create them from scratch while they wait on the line. It also means maintenance customers do not exist in the software until someone remembers them. Importing the list up front puts everyone on the map and in the system before the first call comes in.

What a CSV File Is

A CSV file is a plain spreadsheet saved in a simple format: one row per customer, one column per piece of information. Almost every spreadsheet program and almost every business program can save or export one. If your list is in a spreadsheet now, you are most of the way there.

Typical columns for a plumbing customer list:

• First and last name, or company name
• Phone and email
• Street address, city, state or province, and zip or postal code
• Notes you want to keep

Clean the List Before You Import

An import is only as good as the file going in. An hour of cleanup saves days of fixing later. Before you import, go through the list and:

• Remove duplicates. The same customer entered twice with slightly different spellings creates two records and two pins on the map.
• Fix addresses. Complete street addresses with city and zip place correctly. “Smith, behind the church” does not.
• Split combined columns. If city, state and zip are all in one cell, split them.
• Drop the dead weight. A customer you have not seen in ten years and do not want back can stay out.
• Mark multi-address clients. A landlord with several rentals is one client with many addresses. Note which rows belong together.

Addresses Placed on the Map Automatically

When you import into PlumbingBossPro, the addresses are placed on the map automatically. You do not drop pins by hand.

That matters because so much of the software is built around the map. The Waiting List shows visits as pins. The dispatch board auto-routes from the shop based on where the addresses are. Crew GPS shows on the same map. Once your customers are placed, all of that works for them right away.

After the import, look over the map. A pin that landed in the wrong town usually means the address had a typo. Fix it on the record and move on.

What to Add After the Import

The CSV gets your customers and addresses in. Some plumbing details are better added after, as you go:

• Equipment on the house. Water heaters, softeners, sump pumps, shut-off locations. Add these on the next visit to each house rather than guessing from old invoices. See Equipment Saved on the House: Water Heaters, Softeners, Pumps and Shut-Offs in Plumbing Software.
• Recurring services. Customers on a yearly flush, softener service or backflow test get their service and minimum days between visits set up, so they come due on the Waiting List.
• Billing settings. Property managers and restaurants that want one statement get set to Monthly.
• Tags and custom fields. Use tags for groups you want to find later, like “landlord” or “restaurant,” and custom fields for anything specific to how your shop works.

Cards on file do not come over in a spreadsheet. Customers add their card through the customer app, a sign-up form, or with the office when they next book.

A Simple Import Plan

1. Export your list from wherever it lives now.
2. Open it in a spreadsheet and clean it up.
3. Save it as CSV.
4. Import it into PlumbingBossPro.
5. Check the map for pins in the wrong place and fix those addresses.
6. Set up recurring services for your maintenance customers.
7. Add equipment as techs visit each house.

Most small shops can get through the first five steps in a day. The free trial is a good time to do it, so you see your own customers in the software instead of sample data. For everything that comes after the import, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing software page.