• Goal
• Prerequisites 
• Workflow
• Common issues

Goal

This guide provides an overview of importing your existing addresses to Xentral via CSV. This kind of import enables you to upload and update large datasets in Xentral.

Prerequisites

Before you start importing contacts to Xentral please ensure that you:

• Know how to create and edit a new contact manually in Xentral.
• Are familiar with the CSV upload. You can refer to this guide.
• Have a matching CSV file and a template for the import. Xentral offers a standard template, so you don’t want to create a new one.

Workflow

The following procedures describe best practices for importing contacts in Xentral.

1. Importing customers and suppliers

2. Checklist for the CSV file

Importing customers and suppliers

Customer data

Xentral offers you a standard template to import customer data. Depending on your needs, you can modify this template or adapt your CSV file to match the template.

1. Log into Xentral and go to Master data > Import/Export center > Master Data Import.
2. Search for the 02 B - Kunden template and click the pencil icon to open it. This is the recommended import template for the initial contact import.
3. In the CSV fields field, you can find which information is expected in which column of your CSV file.
4. You can delete every entry in these CSV fields you don’t want to import. The corresponding column in your CSV file may remain empty if you don’t want to change the template. 
5. Adapt your CSV file to match the column order of the template.
6. Upload your CSV file in the Start import tab of the import template.
7. Use the preview of the imported data for a final check.
8. Click Import to start the process. The import will likely take a few minutes. You can find the data in Master Data > Contacts.

Supplier data

If you want to import suppliers, follow the steps above for the import template 02 D Lieferanten.

Checklist for the CSV file

• Mandatory fields: name and customer (or supplier) number.
• Only one line per customer.
• Each customer number is unique.
• All fields without content are set to default (for example, country, language, and others).

Note: The system distinguishes between customers and suppliers by different numbers. Customers receive a customer number, and suppliers receive a supplier number. Those numbers are the primary identifier for every import and therefore are mandatory.

You can assign the customer number or supplier number according to the number range in Xentral. To do this, add NEU in the column for customer number/supplier number in the CSV file:

You can find a complete overview of importing special fields in your contacts, including examples for the CSV fields in this article.

Common issues

I imported many incorrect customer numbers and can’t change them with a new import.

• You can’t change customer numbers with another import once you initially set them. There is a field for alternative customer numbers, which can be imported and updated with the import variable “kundennummer_buchhaltung”. Xentral will then use this number for your accounting export.

I want to import older sales orders and invoices. Do I need to import the corresponding customers first?

• You can import customer data by importing documents. Although we recommend importing the customer data first, document import is also suitable. Please make sure that your CSV file for your documents contains the needed customer numbers or at least includes the statement NEW to create new numbers.

I have customer and supplier-specific prices. How can I import those?

• You can import both, but this data is part of your products, not your contacts. Therefore such prices are imported together with or after your product import. We recommend importing your contacts first and then your products. With this order, you can avoid the additional prices import.