Welcome to the Fit Small Business Xero
training course. In the last two lessons
we discussed how to add customers and
suppliers manually. In this lesson we're
going to cover how to import customer
and supplier contacts in Xero. To follow
along with me, log in to your Xero
account now or click the link below this
video for a free 30-day trial of Xero.
You can also click this link to access
our full Xero course and other helpful
resources. Let's get started the steps
for importing customers and suppliers
are exactly the same. But the type of
information that you need to include is
different. We will discuss the
information you should include for
customers first, and then suppliers. There
are two ways that you can enter contacts
into Xero. You can enter them manually or
you can upload the information via
spreadsheet. Since we discussed the first
option in our previous lessons, this
lesson will focus on importing contacts
via a spreadsheet. To do this you'll use
an import template. This is a spreadsheet
provided by zero that specifies the data
you need to include and where to include it.
Whether you are converting from
another accounting software or not,
importing via a spreadsheet will cut
your time in half compared to manually
entering contacts. The import template
for customers and suppliers is exactly
the same. However, there are certain
fields that we will focus on for
customer contacts only. Let's discuss the
fields that you will complete for your
customer contacts and how to format that
information. Here is the spreadsheet that
we need to complete to prepare our
information for import. The only field
that is required is Contact Name the
very first field here. However, it will
save you time later on if you import all
of the information that you have for
each customer. The next column is Account
Number. If you assign account numbers
to your customers you want to enter that
information in this field. This field can
be a combination of letters and numbers.
Email Address: you want to enter the
email address that you use to contact
your customer in this field,
along with your primary contact's first
and last name in these next two fields.
The SA Attention To and the next
several fields all pertain to your
customer's address information. So in
these fields you want to include the
address that you should use to send
invoices and other correspondence to
your customers. The next three fields
include the contact information for
phone number, fax number, and the mobile
or cell number.
Be sure to format these columns exactly
as you see here with the dashes in
between the numbers. In the Skype Name
field you want to go ahead and enter
your customer's Skype ID. This will come
in handy should you decide to
communicate with your customer
face-to-face via Skype. The AR Tax Code
column is where the sales tax rate is
different from the default sales tax
rate. Then you want to go ahead and enter
the sales tax rate for a customer in
this field. Please note that you must
enter the exact sales tax name that you
have set up in Xero. So for example
here we have LA County as the tax name
here. Head over to our How to Set Up
Sales Tax lesson to learn how to set up
and track sales tax. Click here to access
this lesson. Enter your customers website
address here in this field. In the
Discount field you want to be sure and
indicate the discount. Your customer
receives a discount on everything that
they buy from you. Then enter that
discount rate in this field and it will
be applied to all future transactions
for this customer. You can enter up to
two decimal places in this field and
notice that there is no need to enter
the percent sign.
Due Date Sales Day: if you have set up
special payment terms for a customer,
enter them in this field. Otherwise, you
can leave this field blank and the
default payment terms for all customers
will apply. You want to complete the due
date sales term column only if you've entered
information in the Due Date Sales Day
column since they go together. Otherwise,
leave this column blank. Sales Account:
complete this field only if the sales for
a customer will not be tracked in the
default sales account setup in the
organization and financial settings.
Please note just enter the account code
only the numeric portion of the account
in this field as we have done.
Sales Tracking Option 1 and 2: complete
these fields only if you have setup
tracking categories. Otherwise, leave
these fields blank. To learn more about
how you can track sales by call center,
department, or location, check out our
Reporting in Xero course. Click here to
access this lesson. Branding Theme: if the
branding theme for this customer differs
from the default branding theme that you
set up in the How to Set Up Invoices lesson,
then enter the name of the branding theme
that you'd like to set up for this
customer here. Otherwise, you can leave it
blank. And finally Default Tax Sales:
complete this field only if the sales
tax is different from the default that
was previously set up. Please note if you
have not set up sales tax rates then you
must do that before importing sales tax
rates information in this template.
Click here to access this lesson. Let's talk
about the information that you need now
to import supplier contacts. Contact Name,
similar to customer contacts, is the only
required field in this template. So in
this column go ahead and enter the name
of the business that you purchase
products and services from. Account
Number: if you have an account number
that your supplier has assigned to you
enter that information here. This field
can be a combination of letters and
numbers. Email Address field: you want to
go ahead and enter the contact email
address that you have for your supplier
and you want to go ahead and enter your
primary contacts first name and last
name in these next couple of columns
here. These next group of columns is
basically the information that you need
to use to
send payment via check or other
correspondence to your suppliers. So you
want to indicate who this information
should be sent directly to. So for
example the accounting department and
then indicate the main address in one
column for example what we have here
with the numeric and the street name.
And then if there's any additional
information like suite number or floor
you can use these additional columns for
that information. And then of course
don't forget to enter your city, state,
and zip code. These next three columns
you want to go ahead and enter the
contact phone number, fax number, and
mobile number that you have for your
supplier. Again we've got a field similar
to customer contacts where you can also
indicate the Skype name or ID.
Bank Account Name: in order to use the batch
payments feature you must enter the name
of your supplier's bank in this field.
You can learn more about how batch payments
work in the How to Set Up Suppliers
lesson. Click here to access this lesson.
The Bank Account Number column and the
Bank Account Particulars column go along
with the Bank Account Name for the batch
payments. So in the Bank Account Number
column you want to be sure and enter the
routing number and the account number of
your supplier's bank account where you
need to send payments to. The Bank
Account Particulars column requires the
type of account that you are using to
send payment. That could be a business
checking account, a business money market
account, etcetera. Tax Number Type: this field
goes hand-in-hand with the next one, Tax
Number. In this column you want to
indicate the type of tax number that you
have received from your supplier. So in
this column for example we have EIN,
which stands for employer identification
number and then in the next column we
have that actual tax ID number formatted
accordingly.
Accounts Payable Tax Code name: if the AP
tax code for a supplier differs from the
default established in the How To
Set Up a Chart
of Accounts lesson, then enter the name of the
tax code that should apply to AP for
this supplier in this column here. In the
next column you want to enter your
supplier's website address if you have
this information. Be sure that you
include the HTTP, colon and the two
back slashes. Discount: if you receive a
discount on all purchases from this
supplier, go ahead and enter the discount
rate in this field. You can enter a
number up to two decimal places and
there is no need to enter the percent sign. Due Date
Bill Day: if you received special payment
times from a supplier, enter them in this
field. Otherwise, you can leave this field
blank and the default payment terms for
all suppliers will apply. The Due Date
Bill Term field goes along with the
Due Date Bill Day column, so for this
particular example this supplier allows
this company to pay on the 30th of the
current month. Purchases Account: if you
track purchases, enter just the account
code from your chart of accounts in this
field. If you don't track your purchases
you can leave this column blank. Purchases
Tracking Option 1 and 2: complete these
fields only if you have set up tracking
categories. Otherwise, you can leave these
fields blank. To learn more about how you
can track purchases by call center,
department, or location, check out our
Reporting in Xero course. Click here to
access this lesson. Branding Theme: if the
branding theme for this supplier differs
from the default branding theme setup
and the how to set up invoices lesson,
enter the name of the branding theme for
the supplier here. Otherwise, you can
leave this field blank. And finally
Default Tax Bills: if you don't want to
use the default tax rate that we set up
and how to set up invoices lesson, then
you can set up a special tax rate for
purchases made from a supplier in this
column. You want to enter the name of the
tax rate as we have done in this field./
Before we proceed to the next step to
import our customer and supplier
contacts, I want to share some
with you for importing the customer and
supplier contacts into Xero. The first
tip is: you can put all customer and
supplier contacts on the same import
template. So there is no need to create
two separate templates for customers and
supplier contacts. Tip number two: you can
import up to a thousand supplier and
customer contacts at one time. If you
have more than 1,000 contacts you can
put them in a separate template and
import the remaining contacts, or enter
them manually.
Tip number three: do not make any changes
to the header row. You want to keep all
of the columns even if you do not plan
to use them all. So when I say header row
I am referring to this very first row,
row 1 of the template, you do not want to
make any changes to that row. And you
don't want to delete any of the columns.
Tip number four: do not change the order of
the columns. And finally as I mentioned
earlier, you want to make sure that you
include the contact name for every
import. So the very first column as I
mentioned is the only required column
and it must be included. Otherwise the
import will not work. Alright let's head
over to Xero and walk through the steps on
how we can import this information.
To import our customer and supplier
contacts in Xero, you want to click on
the contacts and then go ahead and
select all contacts. In this screen click on
import. The import contacts screen is
broken down into three steps. The first
step we've already completed when we
downloaded our contacts template file.
So to download this template which we've
already done you can click on this link
and save it to your computer. Step 2 is
to prepare the template which is what we
just did together. So that will either
consist of you entering the information
manually or copying and pasting it from
another template if you currently
of accounting software program that
you're working with. So now we are on
step 3, which is to import the
updated template file. So you want to go
ahead and click on the browse button to
locate the file that we saved.
Once you've located your import file you
should see the name of the file to the
right. Make sure it has the dot CSV
format at the end. Please note that in
addition to importing new contacts,
you can also update information for existing
contacts. When doing so you will need to
let Xero know how you want to handle any
empty fields for existing contacts. And
you've got one of two options: you can
either have Xero ignore the empty fields
just select this first option, or you can
have Xero delete the existing information
for any fields that are empty in the
template. To learn more about how to
update multiple contacts at once, click
the link below. So once you've made your
selections we are ready to proceed with
the import. So go ahead and click the
import button and it will take us to the
screen where we have one last
opportunity to review the information
that will be imported before the final
import. So within this screen, Xero
provides us with the action that will be
taken once we complete the import.
The total number of contacts is listed here
and then it's broken down between new
contacts versus updated contacts.
You also may have some warnings here.
So warnings simply is just a heads-up to you
from Xero about certain information in
the data. But this information will still
be imported if you would like it to be.
So once you have confirmed that this
information matches your spreadsheet you
can go ahead and proceed with the import
by clicking the complete import button.
If for some reason you need to make some
changes or this is just completely
incorrect, you want to go ahead and click
that go back button and make the changes
that you need to make. Don't forget that
when you import your contacts they will
show up in the all contacts group in Xero.
Xero will categorize your contacts as either
customers or suppliers after you have
entered a transaction like an invoice or
a bill for the contact. That wraps up the
lesson on how to import customers and
suppliers in Xero. To access our full
Xero course or any of the other lessons
in this series, click this link. You can
also find a link below this video for a
free 30-day trial of Xero.
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