PressureWashingBossPro Blog — Pressure Washing Software

CSV Import: Moving Your Customer List Into Pressure Washing Software

The thought of typing every customer into new software is what keeps a lot of owners on paper. You do not have to. If your customers are in a spreadsheet, a contact export or another system that can export a file, a CSV import brings them in at once.

Your List Is the Starting Point

Commercial accounts with many addresses, described in Monthly Statements for Commercial Pressure Washing Accounts, are a good example of why the structure of your data matters. Getting customers and addresses in correctly the first time saves hours later.

A CSV file is just a spreadsheet saved in a simple format. Almost any spreadsheet program can save one, and most software can export one.

What to Put in the File

At minimum, each row should have:

• Customer name
• Phone number and email
• Street address, city, state or province, and ZIP or postal code

Helpful extras if you have them:

• Company name for commercial customers
• Notes, like gate codes or spigot location
• Tags, like “Residential,” “HOA,” or “Yearly”

Do not worry about getting every detail in the import. You can add job details, recurring plans and access notes after the customers are in.

Clean Up Before You Import

A little cleanup before importing saves a lot of fixing after. Spend an hour on these:

• Remove duplicates. The same customer entered twice with slightly different spellings becomes two clients.
• Split addresses into columns. Street, city, state and ZIP in their own columns place more reliably than one long address line.
• Fix obvious typos. A wrong ZIP code can put a pin in the wrong town.
• Drop customers you will never serve again. The one-time job from four years ago across the county can probably go.

Where Your List Probably Lives Now

Most small washing companies have customers spread across several places: contacts in the phone, a spreadsheet started in year one and abandoned in year two, a stack of paper invoices, and whatever system sent the last batch of invoices. Before importing, pull those together into one spreadsheet.

Phone contacts can usually be exported. Old invoices can be skimmed for addresses you do not have elsewhere. It is tedious work for an evening, but it is the one evening that makes every later step easier. While you are at it, mark which customers are recurring, since they are the ones who need plans set first.

Addresses Go on the Map Automatically

When you import with PressureWashingBossPro, the imported addresses are placed on the map automatically. That matters because the map is where a lot of the work happens: the Waiting List shows due visits as pins, the property map is where you measure from satellite, and routing works from addresses on the map.

After the import, take a quick look at the map. If a pin looks out of place, open the address and check it. A rural route or a new subdivision sometimes needs a second look.

After the Import: Add What Makes It Useful

The import gets names and addresses in. The next step is adding the details that make pressure washing software worth having:

• Job details. Surfaces, square feet, stories, siding and method for your regular customers.
• Recurring plans. 30 days for monthly storefronts, 90 for quarterly HOAs, 365 for yearly house washes.
• Access notes. Spigot location, gate codes, dogs, plants to cover.
• Multiple addresses. Group commercial locations under one client if they came in separately.
• Billing settings. Monthly for commercial accounts that want one statement.

You do not have to do it all at once. Start with recurring commercial customers, since they come due first, then work through residential customers as they come up.

Bringing in History

Many owners wonder whether to import old jobs too. For most small companies, the most important history is simple: when did you last wash each recurring customer? That date tells the software when the next visit is due. Notes about past problems, like a stain that needs extra attention, can go into the access notes or customer notes.

Detailed invoice history from an old system is usually best kept as an export file you can look up if you need it, rather than imported line by line.

Ready to Run

Once customers are in, placed on the map and given their details, the software is ready to run real work. Reports start filling in as jobs get completed, covered next in Reports in Pressure Washing Software: The Numbers Worth Checking Each Week. For the full move from another system, see Switching Pressure Washing Software Without Losing Your Customers or Your Season.

To see how your customer list connects to scheduling, routing and billing, visit the PressureWashingBossPro pressure washing software page.