Upload clients from a spreadsheet : Support

In addition to manually creating clients, you can upload them from an Excel or CSV file. This is useful when you already have a large database of clients. Uploading saves you time when creating and updating existing clients.

Uploading sites is described in separate instructions.

Clients can be imported from XLSX or CSV files. The required fields for uploading are: the client's name for individuals and the client's company name for organizations. All other fields are optional; you don't have to include them in the table if you don't need them.

To enable clients to be updated later through uploads, we recommend specifying an external identifier for each client during the first import. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to update clients manually or via the API.

The upload process occurs in four stages:

Upload the file.
Map the file's columns to the client’s fields.
Preview. At this stage, you can check whether columns and fields are correctly matched and view any errors.
Upload results. Creation and updating of clients from the file.

File upload

To upload clients, first prepare the file. It can be a CSV or XLSX file. The order, column names, and contents are not strictly formatted. For each client, the name (for individuals) or company name (for organizations) is required. Other columns may contain details such as address, phone number, address description, information from the client’s additional fields, etc.
An example file in XLSX and CSV format with standard client fields is attached to the instructions.

Upload file

When the file is ready, go to the Addresses page, click the upload button, and select Upload clients. In the window that opens, upload your prepared file.

Clients file upload

Column mapping

Once the file is uploaded, match the client fields with the file’s columns. At this stage, select which columns from your file correspond to which client fields.
During preview, you can see the first few values from each column.

Matching file fields with client fields

If a column does not match any client field, you can leave it blank. Its values will not be used when uploading clients.

Unmatched fields

Preview

At the preview stage, Planado shows how the uploaded clients will appear and any errors detected.

The uploaded file preview

Some errors can be fixed at the mapping stage, but others may require editing the upload file. Possible error examples:

The client’s name or company name is not specified. If these are in your file but not matched to the right field, go back to mapping and select the correct field.
A client has both the first or last name and the organization name entered. First and last names should only be for individual clients, and the company name only for the organizations.
Assigning first or last name to an organization or vice versa during client updates. If a client is already created in Planado, it has a type: individual or organization. The client type does not change. Therefore, if you specify a company name for an individual client or a personal name for an organization in the upload file, it will result in an error.

File errors during preview

After previewing, you can start creating clients from the file. Click the Create and update button. You can also choose Create or Update if you only want to create new clients from your file or only update existing ones.

Create and update clients from a file.

Upload results:

At the final stage, you can view the results of the upload, open newly created and updated clients, and check for errors that occurred during uploading.