Importing Data

It's easy to import customers, invoices, payments, and items into e-Cont.md. This guide shows you how to import data into e-Cont.md using our importer.

Identifying Existing Records

Each data type that supports updates, deletes, or voids has its own criteria for matching a row being imported to an existing record. These are criteria for matching existing records for each data type:

• Customers - name OR account number
• Contacts - customer identifier AND contact name
• Invoices, Estimates, and Credit Notes - document number

Customers

Steps to import Customers:

1. Go to the Customers section
2. Click the Import link to the right of the page
3. Build your import spreadsheet, select all the contents, and paste it into the textbox. Download a sample customers import template to get started.
4. Click Go to Next Step
5. Match each column to a field in e-Cont.md. You can also select Skip in the dropdown list to skip a column in your spreadsheet.
6. Click Start Import. That's it. We will notify you when the import finishes.

Tips

• The only required field is the customer's name.
• Customers are identified by their account number first, and if that's not given then customers are identified by their name. If a customer with the same account number (or name if account # was not given) has already been created in e-Cont.md then a new customer will not be created.
• You can supply an account #, or if left empty, we will generate one for you.
• The Type field can only be one of person, company, or blank.

Contacts

1. Go to the Customers page.
2. Click the Import button in the top right corner.
3. Select the Contacts option.
4. Build your import spreadsheet, select and copy the text, and paste it into the textbox. Download a sample Contacts import template to get started.
5. Select Go to Next Step.
6. Match each column to a field in e-Cont.md. You can also select Skip in the dropdown list to skip a column in your spreadsheet.
7. Select Start Import.

Invoices

Steps to import Invoices:

1. Go to the Invoices page
2. Click the Import button in the top right corner
3. Build your import spreadsheet, select all the contents, and paste it into the textbox. Download a sample invoices import template to get started.
4. Click Go to Next Step
5. Match each column to a field in e-Cont.md. You can also select Skip in the dropdown list to skip a column in your spreadsheet.
6. Click Start Import. That's it. We will notify you when the import finishes.

Tips

• The only required field is one of Customer Name, Customer ID, or Account #.
• Each line represents an invoice AND a corresponding line item. If an invoice has multiple line items then you would have multiple lines for the same invoice. Only the first line needs to include the invoice's information. Subsequent lines must have the same invoice #, however only need to have the line item fields filled in (Item, Description, Quantity, Unit Cost, Tax, and Discounts).
• Performing an update operation with any line item field specified replaces all line items on the invoice with the new data in the spreadsheet. If updating only a single line item field then you must include the values for all other line item fields on that invoice.
• You can supply an invoice # or leave it blank. If left blank we will generate one for you.
• Customers are identified by their account number first, and if that's not given then customers are identified by their name. If a customer with the same account number (or name if account # was not given) has already been created in e-Cont.md then the existing customer will be used. Otherwise, we will create a new customer.
• The Currency field should use an ISO-4217 currency code. Otherwise, we will use your default currency.
• The Type field can be one of product, service, expense, hours, days, month, year, shipping, or blank