Why does importing and exporting your data matter?

Because your data is the business. Your customers, your suppliers and your stock took years to build, and software that makes it hard to bring them in, or hard to take them out, is software you are stuck with. Importing decides how quickly you can start. Exporting decides whether you can ever leave, and whether you can use your own numbers anywhere else. A system worth running a business on does both well.

Getting in: why importing matters

On the first day you already have lists. Customers in one spreadsheet, suppliers in another, stock in a third, each built up over years. Typing them in again takes weeks, and every retyped phone number is a chance for a mistake that you find months later, on an invoice.

A good import does more than read a file:

• It tells you the layout before you start. A template with the right columns, so you are not guessing what the software expects.
• It does not make duplicates. Upload the same file twice and nothing should be doubled. A row that matches a record you already hold should update it.
• It plays by the same rules as typing. A record that could not be saved on the screen should not be saved by a file. Otherwise an import is the back door round every rule you set.
• It tells you what happened to every row. Not "done", but which rows were created, which were changed, which were left alone, and why the rest were skipped.
• It lets you fix and try again. If a few rows were wrong, you should correct those few and upload again, not start over.

Getting out: why exporting matters

Your accountant wants the numbers. You want to look at last year's sales in a spreadsheet, the way you always have. A new system is being considered, and you want to know what you would take with you. None of these should need a ticket, a fee or a favour.

A simple test for any business software: can I get everything out, in a format any spreadsheet opens, as often as I like, without paying and without asking? If the answer is no, you do not own your data in any way that matters. It is also worth keeping your own copies. A provider's backups exist to recover the service after a disaster, not to bring back what you changed or deleted by mistake.

The round trip is the real test

Import and export are most useful together. Export a list, change it in a spreadsheet, and import it back. That is how you raise a price list by five percent, tidy a column of phone numbers, or add a delivery route to a hundred customers at once, without opening a hundred records. If the file that comes out is not a file that can go back in, you only have half of it.

How RPM does it

• Import. Customers, suppliers and stock each take a CSV upload. Open More (the three dots beside the search box), then Import, download the template, fill it in and upload it. New records are created and matching ones are updated, each saved the way you would have saved it yourself, with every rule the screen has. Stock takes a Cost and a Selling column for each of your price levels, and any extra details your company has added are columns too.
• A results file for every upload. It is your own file with two columns added, Outcome and Reason. A skipped row says why. Correct those rows in the same file and upload it again: rows are found by their names again, so only the ones you fixed change.
• No doubling. A customer is matched by its names, a supplier by its business name and a stock item by its short name, so uploading the same file again changes nothing. The code column is headed "(Ignored)" and read past, since codes are made for you and a spreadsheet strips the zeros from them.
• Export. Every screen exports to CSV or PDF, as often as you like, at no charge. A list can also be exported as one CSV for each row, in a zip, and the files arrive in your messages when they are ready.
• CSV for import. The Export menu of a list that takes uploads has one more choice, CSV for import: the list as it stands, laid out exactly as an upload takes it. Change it, and upload it again.
• You need the permission. Importing is a permission of its own, given to the people you choose.

The user guide walks through an upload a step at a time, from the template to the results.

What it does not do, so that you do not find out the hard way:

• Only those three lists take an upload. Quotes, orders, invoices and the other documents are made in the application, not imported, because each one moves stock and money. Tell us at support@rpmcode.com if there is something else you need to bring in.
• A blank cell changes nothing. An upload can fill a field in or change it, but it cannot empty one yet.
• Dates are year, month, day. 2026-10-16, never 16/10/2026, so that a day is never mistaken for a month.

Try it with your own data

The first six months are free on our shared server, with every screen, so you can bring in your own customers and see whether the numbers come out right before you commit to anything. Create a free account, or read the user guide first.