To import customers into QuickBooks Online, build a CSV or Excel file with one customer per row and headers in the first row, keep it under 1,000 rows and 2 MB, then choose Settings, Import data, Customers and map each column. Every customer name must be unique, and a second import adds records rather than updating old ones.
Customer file limits QuickBooks Online enforces
A customer file for QuickBooks Online can be a CSV, an XLS or XLSX workbook, or a connected Google Sheet. Intuit's guide to importing customers, vendors and email contacts caps one file at 2 MB or 1,000 rows. A longer customer list has to go in as several files.
The same guide sets rules on the shape of the sheet. Customers must sit on the first sheet of a workbook, with column headers in row 1. The file can't contain formulas, charts or blank rows, and error values such as #REF! or #N/A stop it. Names can't contain colons or quotation marks.
Exports that break these rules
Customer lists usually come out of another program: an old accounting system, a shop platform, a CRM or an email tool. Those exports often carry a title row above the headers, a totals row at the bottom, or a lookup formula someone added years ago. Each one breaks the upload. Open the export, paste it as values into a fresh workbook, delete anything that isn't a header or a customer, and save it again before you try QuickBooks.
Splitting a long list
If you have 2,600 customers, cut the list into three files of 900 or fewer. Split it alphabetically, by A to H, I to Q and R to Z, rather than at random. A failed file is then easy to find again, and you can confirm each slice landed by filtering the customer list by its first letter.
Customer columns that earn a place in the CSV
A customer CSV needs one column above all: the customer's display name. Company name, email, phone, billing address and shipping address are the usual extras. Add a column only if you will use the detail in QuickBooks, because every column you add is one more thing to map and check on the import screen.
Here is an example customer file with notes on what was fixed before upload. The names are made up for illustration.
| Name | Company | Phone | Billing street | City | State | ZIP | Fix made | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brennan Orthodontics | Brennan Orthodontics PLLC | office@example.com | 555-0142 | 18 Alder Way | Tacoma | WA | 98402 | Removed a second email |
| Okafor, Ada | ada@example.com | 555-0177 | 902 Birch Ct | Olympia | WA | 98501 | None | |
| Tidewater Kayak Rentals | Tidewater Kayak Rentals LLC | 555-0190 | 4 Pier Rd | Gig Harbor | WA | 98335 | Removed quotation marks from the name |
Intuit's guide says only one email address per contact is imported, and the address you map goes to the billing address. The first row had two addresses in one cell, so the second was moved to a note to add by hand later.
Splitting addresses into parts
Some exports hold the whole address in a single cell. When the mapping screen offers street, city, state and ZIP as separate fields, a one-cell address can only go into one of them, usually the street line. Use Excel's text-to-columns tool, or a few formulas pasted as values, to break it apart before you save the CSV.
Why can't a customer share a name with a vendor or employee?
QuickBooks Online keeps one pool of names for customers, vendors and employees, and every name in that pool must be unique. Intuit's guide states that a vendor, customer or employee can't have the same name as another. A customer who is also a supplier will be rejected if the vendor record already uses that exact name.
This catches businesses that buy from and sell to the same company. A landscaping firm might buy plants from a nursery and also maintain the nursery's grounds. If the vendor list already has "Greenleaf Nursery", the customer row with that name will not import.
The fix is a small, consistent difference. Many bookkeepers add a suffix to one side, such as "Greenleaf Nursery (C)" for the customer. Pick one convention and use it every time, so later searches find both records. The guide to importing vendors into QuickBooks Online covers the supplier side of the same rule.
Running the customer upload from Settings
The customer upload starts from the gear icon. You choose Import data, pick Customers, load the file and match columns to QuickBooks fields. A preview then shows each customer the file will create, and you can untick any you don't want before the import runs. Intuit lists the screens in its guide to importing customers, vendors and email contacts.
A few choices on those screens shape the result:
- Upload source. Browse to a file on your computer, or connect Google and pick the sheet.
- Field matching. Each QuickBooks field gets a dropdown of your column headers. Set any field you have no data for to No Match.
- Name field. Point the name field at the column you want shown on invoices. If your sheet has both a person's name and a company name, decide which one customers will recognize on a bill.
- Preview. Read the preview top to bottom. A column mapped one place off shows up here as emails in the phone field or cities in the ZIP field.
- Import. Start it, then open the customer list and sort by date created to see what arrived.
Match the full customer count against your file. If the file had 412 customers and the list grew by 409, three rows were dropped, and a lookup of the file against an export of the list will tell you which.
What happens to customers already in QuickBooks Online when you import again?
A second customer import does not update anyone already in QuickBooks Online. Intuit warns that the list won't be overwritten, which can create duplicate entries when a name differs slightly. Customers with an identical name are refused because of the unique-name rule. Neither outcome changes the details on the existing record.
That means the import is a one-way tool for adding customers, not for editing them. If you imported a list, found that half the phone numbers were wrong, and import a corrected file, you get either refusals or near-duplicates. Intuit suggests making the earlier imported customers inactive before re-importing, or editing each one by hand.
A safer order for a corrected list
When the first import went wrong:
- Export the current customer list so you have a record of what's there.
- Mark the faulty imported customers inactive, if none of them has transactions yet.
- Fix the file, using exactly the names you want to keep.
- Import the corrected file and compare the counts again.
If some of those customers already have invoices attached, edit them one by one instead. An inactive customer with history is harder to report on, and the history won't move to the new record.
Sub-customers, currencies and extra emails after the customer import
The customer import leaves some details for afterwards. Intuit's guide says sub-customers can't be imported as sub-customers; bring them in as ordinary customers and attach each one to its parent afterwards. Only one email per customer comes through, and multicurrency needs setting up before the upload, not after.
Currency on imported customers
If you bill in more than one currency, turn on multicurrency and decide each customer's currency before the upload. Intuit's guide to importing multiple invoices notes that an imported customer without a currency is assumed to use US dollars.
Details worth adding by hand
Payment terms, a preferred delivery method and notes about how a customer likes to be billed are quick to set on each record once the names exist. For a short list, open each customer and fill them in. For a long one, set terms on the customers you invoice most and leave the rest for when their next invoice is due.
Products before invoices
Customers are usually the first list loaded into a new company, followed by the products and services you sell. With both in place, an invoice import has a customer and an item to point every line at. The guide to importing products and services into QuickBooks Online covers that second list.
Customer names that later meet bank deposits
Customer names matter on the bank side as much as on invoices. When a customer pays, the deposit in your bank account needs to be matched to their payment or invoice, and QuickBooks suggests matches more readily when the customer name and amount line up. A messy customer list makes that review slower every month.
Clean names pay off when bank lines arrive. If "Brennan Orthodontics" is one record, every payment from them lands against the same customer, and their balance stays correct. If there are three versions of the name, payments scatter across them and statements to the customer go out wrong.
The deposits come from a bank feed, a bank download or an uploaded file. A card or bank that only offers a PDF statement is the awkward case; the guide to converting a Capital One statement to QBO shows how that conversion works for one issuer. SimpleBankConvert is meant to produce that kind of file from most PDF bank statements, so the payments from your newly imported customers have bank lines to match.