When importing a lead or a customer, Method will also create an associated contact for each lead or customer. Remember, in Method, there is a difference between Contacts and Customers.
Before you begin, you may want to make sure you have the proper permissions. Please see our article Giving Access to the Import / Export Tool.
Import Templates
When importing any file, it is important to understand which fields are needed and how to populate them.
Below are sample Excel templates to use for importing a lead or a customer:
Excel template for QuickBooks Desktop users (for leads and customers).
Excel template for QuickBooks Online users (for leads and customers).
Excel template for Xero users (for leads and customers).
The above spreadsheets will show how your import files should be formatted. It includes:
Required fields
Commonly-used fields (Do not alter the field names in the first row)
Field length restrictions (Hover over field names to see comments)
Sample data (Replace with your own data)
The following is a list of the column headers we’ve included for you. The character maximum length will be indicated in brackets.
Name (41): This field is the unique Customer display name that syncs to QuickBooks (as shown in the image below for a QuickBooks Online account):
You can use the customer's Company's Name or the contact's full name depending on your use case and how you want to identify them.
NOTE: If you do NOT include the Name column, then it will copy the CompanyName field for the Customer display name. If you do not have a CompanyName field, then it will concatenate the FirstName field and the LastName field together and use that for the Customer display name.
CompanyName (41): Customer’s company name.
FirstName (25): Required field only for QuickBooks Online. First name which will be used for the contact.
LastName (25): Last name used for the contact.
Phone (21): Main phone number for the contact.
Email (1023): Contact’s email address.
BillAddress fields (each at 41): There are three fields marked BillAddressAddr# and are provided in addition to BillAddressCity, BillAddressCountry, BillAddressState and BillAddressPostalCode. The BillAddressAddr fields are typically used for the customer's name, street address, and suite number if necessary.
If there are other fields you want in the template, you can add them in. Please view the Customer table to see which fields are available. If you have custom fields, you will need to add them to Customer table first.
Notes to consider
When importing your customer or lead, follow the regular process of:
However, when selecting a data type, select either Leads or Customer:
Multiple Contacts
When you get to the section Import or Update Records, this import allows for multiple contacts for the same customer.
For example:
In the above image, there are two rows with Great Gulf Sports in the Name column, but note the FirstName , LastName , and Email columns are different. In the above example, only one customer is imported, and the second row is imported into the Contacts table as a contact.
Great Gulf Sports - Imported as a customer into the Customer table
Travis Beam - Imported as the main contact into the Contacts table
Paige Park - Imported as a second contact into the Contacts table
In the case where Great Gulf Sports already exists as a customer in the table, then the import will add Travis and Paige as a second and third contact.
Duplicates are Ignored
In the above scenario, if a row has the same Name as another row, or the Name already exists in Method, then it adds it in as a new contact.
This may be problematic if you want to check for duplicates.
In the above example, there are two rows exactly the same. They will not be flagged as duplicates. Instead, they will both be added to Method. In particular:
Great Gulf Sports - Imported as a customer into the Customer table
Travis Beam - Imported as the main contact into the Contacts table
Travis Beam - Imported as a second contact into the Contacts table
If you want to check for duplicates, select the Unique Field to Fullname when importing records.
Reviewing your import
When you get to the Next Steps section, you can review your import:
Note that Records shows how many Contacts will be created as well as how many customer records will be created or updated.
Remember, with every new customer record, there will always be at least one newly created contact. A customer record cannot exist without a contact record and vice versa.
Assigning a Method User
Every lead or customer can be assigned to an existing Method User. Selecting a Method User will assign that Method user to every record imported.
