Import and export: CSV, XLSX and bank statements

Two questions decide whether a system is worth trying: can I get my data in, and can I get it out again.

The first is a migration you do once and then remember for years. The second is the one people forget to ask until they want to leave, which is exactly the wrong moment to find out the answer.

What you can do

Import customers and suppliers with their addresses, contacts and registration numbers.
Import your product catalog with prices, tax codes, accounts and stock levels.
Import a chart of accounts if you’re bringing one with you.
Import bank statements, in your bank’s structured format or as a spreadsheet.
Import mailing contacts for your lists.
Download a template for whatever you’re importing, so the columns aren’t a guessing game.
Import the sheet you already have. Columns are matched to fields for you, including the names other systems use, like SKU, Title or Qty on hand.
Preview before committing, and abandon an import that doesn’t look right.
Export your customers and products, and every report, as CSV, XLSX or PDF.

How it works in practice

Start from the list you’re filling. Spreadsheet imports start with the Import button on the list they fill: customers and suppliers from CRM → Accounts → Accounts, products from Products → Catalog → Products, your chart from Finance → Bookkeeping → Ledger Accounts, and contacts from a list under CRM → Marketing → Mailing Lists.

Download the template. The first step gives you a file with the columns in the right shape and the right headers, and the fill-in notes on the same screen. That turns “what does this system want?” into a spreadsheet exercise you can hand to somebody.

Upload, then check the matches. Every column in your sheet is shown with its heading and a few example values, already matched to the field it most likely feeds. The matching ignores case, punctuation and notes like “(USD)”, and knows the names other systems use. A filled-in template or a typical webshop export needs nothing here. Anything else, you pick the field from a list, or mark the column Don’t import. Each field takes one column.

Look at it before you commit. An upload is staged, not applied. You see what will be created, which is when the wrong column or the European decimal separator shows itself. Committing is a separate, deliberate step.

Do it in the right order. Customers before documents. Ledger accounts, tax codes and units before products. Products before stock. Anything a record points at has to exist first, so an import in the wrong order fails on the references rather than quietly making up the missing parts.

Bank statements are a special case, and a better one (Finance → Bank). Your bank’s structured export - the formats designed for exactly this - matches far more reliably than a spreadsheet where the description is whatever the bank happened to print. Either way, lines are previewed against your open invoices before anything is registered, and matched payments can be recorded as the import completes.

Getting data out is two things. Customers and products export from the same screens they import through, and every report exports to CSV, XLSX or PDF. That second route is the one most people actually want, because it carries the figures with the context that makes them mean something.

Good to know

Up to 1,000 rows a file. Split anything bigger and import it in parts.
Not everything imports. Customers, suppliers, products, ledger accounts, bank statements, mailing contacts and document lines do. Historic invoices with their journals don’t, and neither do posted balances from a previous system.
That shapes how you migrate. The usual approach is opening balances as a manual journal at a chosen date, master data imported, and history left in the old system for as long as you have to keep it. Agree the changeover date with your accountant before you import anything.
Import creates, it doesn’t reconcile. Running the same file twice makes a second set of records rather than updating the first, and preview exists so that doesn’t happen by accident.
Check your decimal separator and date format in the preview. A file written by a European spreadsheet and read as though it were American is the single most common import problem, and it’s completely invisible until you look at a total.
Your data leaves with you, on every plan including the free one. Software that’s hard to leave stops having to be good.
Leaving takes a month, on purpose. Export what you want to keep, then delete the company (Settings → Security → Delete Company), confirmed with a code we email you. It goes a month later, and signing back in before then is all it takes to change your mind.
Starting over doesn’t mean leaving. Settings → Security → Reset Registration clears the company back to what a new one starts with, and keeps your logins, your plan, your API keys and your connections.
For anything large or unusual, do a trial run first. Import into a company you set up for the purpose, look at the results, then do it properly. It costs an hour and saves a weekend.