HVACBossPro Blog — HVAC Software

Moving Your Customer List Into HVAC Software With a CSV Import

The thing that stops most small HVAC owners from switching software is not the software. It is the thought of typing in every customer. A few hundred names, addresses and phone numbers, some in a spreadsheet, some in an old program, some on index cards. A CSV import takes most of that work away.

Starting From What You Have

Property managers with dozens of addresses, covered in Monthly Statements for Property Managers: One HVAC Bill for Every Rental, are a good example of why importing matters. Nobody wants to type forty rental addresses by hand. Your whole customer list is the same problem, just bigger.

A CSV file is just a spreadsheet saved in a plain format. Almost every spreadsheet program can save one, and almost every piece of software, including whatever you use now, can export one.

Get the List Out

Where your customers live now decides the first step:

• A spreadsheet. You are most of the way there. Save it as CSV.
• Other software. Look for an export option for customers or clients. Most programs have one, even if it is buried in settings.
• An accounting tool. Your customer list there is often the most complete one you have, because everyone who ever paid you is in it.
• Paper. Type the active customers into a spreadsheet first. Start with maintenance customers and anyone you have seen in the last year or two.

Clean It Before You Import

An hour of cleanup before importing saves days of fixing things after. Go through the spreadsheet and:

• Split the address into columns. Street, city, state or province, and ZIP or postal code each in their own column.
• Remove duplicates. The same customer entered twice will show up twice. Merge them now.
• Drop customers you will never see again. Someone who moved away years ago does not need to come along.
• Mark maintenance customers. Add a column that says which ones are on a plan, so you can tag them after import.
• Fix phone numbers and emails. These drive the texts and invoices, so they need to be right.

If you have equipment details in the spreadsheet, keep them. If you do not, do not stop to collect them now; techs will fill them in on the next visit.

Import and Check the Map

In HVACBossPro, the CSV import brings in your customers and their addresses, and imported addresses are placed on the map automatically. That map placement matters for an HVAC company: it is what makes the Waiting List map, auto-routing and crew GPS useful from day one.

After the import, look at the map. Pins in the wrong state or in the middle of a lake usually mean a typo in the address. Fix those few by hand. Then spot-check a handful of customers to make sure names, phones and emails came through in the right fields.

After the Import

With customers in, a few steps turn a list into a working system:

• Tag plan customers. Use the Maintenance Plan tag on everyone with an agreement. Tags are covered in Tags and Custom Fields: Sorting HVAC Customers by Plan, Building and Priority.
• Set up agreements. Set the minimum days between visits (180 or 365) for each plan customer, so their tune-ups come due on the Waiting List.
• Group multi-address clients. Make sure property managers and businesses have all their addresses under one client, and set them to Monthly if they want one statement.
• Add cards. Ask customers to add a card in the customer app, or collect it on their next visit.

Filling In Equipment Over Time

Equipment rarely comes in a clean spreadsheet. That is fine. Make it part of every visit: the tech reads the data plate, notes the system type, brand, model, serial, year, tonnage, filter size and unit location, and photographs the data plate. Maintenance customers fill in within a season, because every one of them gets a tune-up.

Within a few months, the customers you see most will have complete records, and the techs will stop asking the office for filter sizes.

Common Import Mistakes

• Importing everything ever. Old, dead customers clutter the map and the lists. Bring the active ones.
• Skipping the map check. One bad address can throw off a whole auto-routed day.
• Waiting for perfect data. Import what you have and fix it as you go. A good list now beats a perfect list next year.

For more on moving from another system, see Switching HVAC Software Without Losing Customers or Tune-Up Dates. To see how imported customers fit into the rest of HVACBossPro, visit the HVAC software page.