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Prepare to Import your Data

Import your customer, job and price book data from another software

Sienna M avatar
Written by Sienna M
Updated over a month ago

If you use spreadsheets or another software system to manage your business data, you can get started more quickly with Housecall Pro by importing it from a file. We currently support importing your Customers, Jobs and Price Book from a file into Housecall Pro.

Note: Pros on our MAX plan can work directly with our data import team where they can import your customers, job history, equipment, and price book for you. Our basic transfer option is free. There may an additional cost for exports with multiple files or exports that require additional formatting that is outside the standard transfer scope of work.

Please work with your Onboarding advisor to set up an initial consultation call. If you’re itching to get started with importing your customers, you are welcome to follow the below instructions to import on your own.

If you use QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop as your most up-to-date source of business data, you can import your customer list, price book, and job history directly.

IMPORTANT: If you have the same customers, jobs/invoices and/or price book items in QuickBooks and your current software, you should not import from both systems as this will duplicate your data.

Table of Contents:


Export your data from another software system

This help article can help you learn how to export your data from another software system:

What to know before importing

  • Some fields are required and some are optional

  • If you do not have any data for the optional fields, you can leave it blank

  • If you have a field that is not listed here, we recommend that you copy into either the Customer or Job Notes or Tags sections in your spreadsheet software before importing.

  • We recommend that you have column headers or names for each field. If your data does not have a column header (meaning the first row has customer data), we recommend adding a new row at the top and using the field names in the table below.

  • If your files require additional formatting prior to upload (merging sheets, combining multiple fields into a single field, etc.) you can consult our Data Formatting Guide for some tips and tricks.

Customers fields

There are some required customer fields and many optional customer fields. If you do not have any data for the optional fields, you can leave it blank. The table below shows which fields you can import.

Field

Description

Format/Notes

Required or Optional

Customer ID

Unique customer identifier

Any number up to 191 characters. each customer should have unique ID

Required - if you do not have an ID, we will use Display name

Display name

Usually full name or company name

Required - if you do not have it, we will use First name/Last name or Full name

First name

Customer first name

Must have one of name, company, or email

Last name

Customer last name

Must have one of name, company, or email

Role

Customer role / title at their job

Optional

Company

Associated company

Must have one of name, company, or email

Service address

Address where you perform the work

Zip code must be a real USA zip code

states can be either the full name or 2 digit code

Optional

Service address notes

Private notes on the service address

Optional

Billing address

Address where you bill the work

Zip code must be a real USA zip code

states can be either the full name or 2 digit code

Optional

Billing address notes

Private notes on the billing address

Optional

Mobile number

Customer mobile phone number

Must be 10 or 11 digits

Optional

Home number

Customer home phone number

Must be 10 or 11 digits

Optional

Work number

Customer work phone number

Must be 10 or 11 digits

Optional

Additional phone numbers

Customer additional phone number

Must be 10 or 11 digits

Optional

Emails

Customer emails

Multiple emails must be separated by commas

Must have one of name, company, or email

Lead source

Source of the customer lead

One per customer

Optional

Customer notes

Private notes on the customer

Optional

Tags

Tags that you wish to use to categorize customers

Multiple tags must be separated by commas

Optional

Type

Customer

Values can be either homeowner/ owner or business

Optional

Notifications enabled

Whether the customer chooses to receive notifications

True/false, yes/no, t/f

Optional

Is a contractor

Whether the customer is a contractor for which you subcontract

True/false, yes/no, t/f

Optional

Jobs fields

The Jobs import has specific fields in addition to all of the Customer fields above. There are some required fields and many optional fields. If you do not have any data for the optional fields, you can leave it blank. The table below shows which fields you can import.

Field

Description

Format/Notes

Required or Optional

Invoice number (note: currently interchangeable with job number)

A number

Any number up to 191 characters, must be unique

Optional - if you do not have it, the system will assign one

Assigned employees

Comma separated list, i.e (Daniel, Salomon, Sienna)

You must have a user in system with identical name

Optional

Job ID

A number, with maximum length validator at 191 characters)

Any number up to 191 characters, each job must have a unique ID

Optional - if you do not have it, the system will assign one

First line item description

Name of a job

Optional

Notes

A note/text for the job

Optional

Subtotal

Amount in dollars for the job

Optional

Tax

A number in dollars

Optional

Payment amount

Amount in dollars

Optional

Payment method type

A string, e.g. ‘Cash', 'Check’

Optional

Payment notes

A note/text for the payment

Optional

Scheduled date

Date

Optional

Schedule time

Date

Optional

Start date

Date

Optional

Completion date

Date

Optional

Invoice Sent date

Date

Optional

Payment date

Date

Optional

Tags

Comma separated list, e.g. ('Tag one', 'Tag two')

Multiple tags must be separated by commas

Optional

Message

Custom message

This will show on the invoice

Optional

Lead source

list that maps to lead sources in HCP

One per job

Optional

Business unit

list that maps to business units in HCP

Optional

Callback

true/false

True/false, yes/no, t/f

Optional

Job type

list that maps to job type in HCP

Optional

Price Book Services fields

Field

Required

Description

Industry

True

The industry that a service lives in. The name of this category must match the name of one of the industries in HCP to be imported.

Category

True

The top-level category that a service lives underneath. All services must have a category within an industry

Subcategory_x

False

The levels of categories a service lives in underneath the top-level category

Name

True

Name for a service.

Description

False

Description of the work included in a service.

Uuid

False

Housecall Pro generated ID for a service. This will only be present when importing a list that was previously exported from Housecall Pro.

Price

False (defaults to $0)

The amount that will be charged to the customer for performing the service. Use the standard format of $0.00.

Cost

False (defaults to $0)

The amount that it cost your company to perform their service. This will be used to calculate profit on jobs. Use the standard format of $0.00.

Taxable

False (defaults to false)

Whether tax should apply to this service when added to a job.

Unit_of_measure

False (defaults to each)

The unit of measure for a single unit of this item. (ex. each, square foot, gallon)

Price Book Materials fields

Field

Required

Description

Category

True

This is the top level category that a material or your material sub-categories live underneath. This is required.

Subcategory_x

False

The levels of categories a material lives within your top level category. This allows you to nest and create further categorization.

Name

True

This is the name of your material or part.

Description

False

Description of the material or part.

Price

False

The amount that would be charged to the customer. Use the standard format of $0.00.

Note: If you use flat rate pricing and material mark ups within Housecall Pro, we will calculate this for you based off (cost * mark up tier) automatically for you.

Cost

False

The amount that this material or part costs your company. This will be used to calculate price if this is a material mark up enabled part. Use the standard format of $0.00.

Taxable

False (defaults to false)

Whether tax should apply to this service when added to a job.

Unit_of_measure

False (defaults to each)

The unit of measure for a single unit of this item. (ex. each, square foot, gallon)

Material mark up enabled

False (only applicable if you have enabled flat rate pricing)

This will automatically calculate price for your materials imported when true. We will calculate your cost field* material mark up tier.


Data Formatting Guide

Housecall Pro’s newest tool, our data Import Wizard, makes it easier than ever to transfer your customer data from a different software directly into Housecall Pro. By uploading a file of historic data, our wizard will enable you to map each field to the appropriate corresponding field in Housecall Pro (see more within our Import & Export Your Data section).

However, the simpler and cleaner your data is, the easier it will be to import into Housecall Pro. With the following formatting guide, we will help you prepare your data with transformation tips and tricks, making it simpler to work with and easier to import into Housecall Pro.

To make this accessible for all users, we’ve added instructions below on how to complete reformatting tasks using Excel formulas (when the task is simple enough) and through a third-party software called Ablebits for Google Sheets (Google’s free version of Excel).

Note: Ablebits enables the user to complete tasks in Google Sheets by clicking buttons rather than writing out formulas. You can sign up for a 30 day free trial with them without having to put a card on file.


Merge Columns

Scenario: You have multiple columns in your file that you want imported into the same field within Housecall Pro.

For example, you have three different columns of “Notes” in your spreadsheet and you want them all to be placed into the Customer Notes field in Housecall Pro.

If you have multiple phone numbers, email addresses, or tags, you should separate these with commas when merging into one field.


Add Text

Scenario: You have a field in your data with information you’d like to transfer into Housecall Pro, but there is no corresponding field within Housecall Pro.

This guide lists the different fields you can currently map to. Custom fields cannot be created.

In this example, let’s say you are a water treatment or pool cleaning business, and you record the pH level for each visit using a pH level field within your data.

Although you can enter information in any field using the guide above, we recommend putting information like this in the customer or job notes field. In a case like this, you can first add a label (ie pH Level: ) in front of each value within this column to avoid confusion on a job or customer profile. So for this example, “7.2” in the notes, would change to “pH Level: 7.2”.


Combine Duplicate Rows

Scenario: The exported version of your data is split into multiple rows per job/invoice.

For example, invoice #100 is spread across four different rows, with each row having a different line item.

With our Import Wizard, each row should correspond to one job or invoice. If multiple rows of data are used for the same invoice or job, it will not upload successfully. Although you can choose to just upload the first occurrence of that job, additional data existing in subsequent rows (such as the additional line items) will not import. In order to get all information to import, you will need to merge the different rows into a single row for every job or invoice.


Merge Sheets

Your exported data is on multiple sheets that need to be merged into one sheet for import.

Some software exports your data into multiple reports. However, Housecall Pro will only import one sheet.

For example, an invoice report might have all the information you need except the details of the job. Your software may also provide a job detail report that provides the line items for each job. Since you aren’t able to import more than one spreadsheet for invoices/jobs into Housecall Pro, you’ll need to merge these reports together.

This is a more advanced process in both Ablebits and Excel, so chat into the blue chat bubble for additional support. In most merge cases, there needs to be linking data that is the same on both sheets for the merge sheet function to work properly. For the above example, you would need to have the invoice number on both the invoice report and the job detail report for the line items from the job detail report to merge successfully with the invoice report.


Replace Text

Scenario: You need to update the text or labels in your data to make it more useful and intuitive.

Replacing text can be a useful way to change one value within a column or entire sheet with another value.

For example, if you want to put the job number in the job notes section of your invoices, but the exported value is #111 and you want it to be Job Number: 111, you can replace each “#” value with “Job Number: “ all at once.

Important: Be sure to highlight ONLY the cells that contain the data you want to change. Otherwise, you may end up changing the data elsewhere in the sheet. A warning will appear before this occurs to ensure you’re replacing the data you intend to replace.


Split Text

Scenario: You need to separate text from one column into two or more columns to import it properly.

There may be instances when your data exports in a single column, but Housecall Pro requires the data to be imported into separate columns for correct display.

There are several examples of when splitting text might be used:

  • The job date and time are in one column on your export, but need to be in two columns for Housecall Pro.

  • Your previous software combines names into one field, and you need to split into Housecall Pro’s first and last names fields.

  • Separating an address that is in line break format into multiple columns,

  • Separating a job number from a job description.


Need assistance? Feel free to click the Blue Chat Bubble. Open a chat and let us know you need assistance with the data transfer process and we'll do our best to help get you on the right track!

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