Your data should be understandable and portable.

A CSV export may contain duplicate contacts, old billing addresses, mixed customer/property fields, and dates in different formats. Review the source before importing. Cleaning up bad records in a spreadsheet can be easier than repairing thousands of mistakes afterward.

Decide which source column becomes customer name, property address, contact phone, equipment identifier, appointment date, and job status. Preserve IDs where appropriate and document what happens when required information is missing.

Import a representative sample that includes multiple properties, repeat customers, old equipment, open jobs, and a few bad records. Check what arrived, what was rejected, and whether staff can find the expected history.

Ask vendors what can leave the system: customers, properties, work orders, photos, invoices, payments, and audit history. Export format, timing, permissions, and retention are part of a good buying decision.

Example to try: A client has one billing account with three service addresses. The import should not silently flatten all three into one location.

• Preserve customer-to-property-to-equipment relationships through sample import.
• Flag duplicate phone numbers rather than treating them as automatic duplicate customers.
• Check invalid rows, timezone conversions and blank-field behavior.
• Request a representative export of every dataset needed for business continuity.