Move Your Shop's Customers and Purchases From Excel to Kiwikit
The hardest part of switching software is the years of customers and supplier bills sitting in a spreadsheet. Here is exactly what Kiwikit can read from Excel, what it checks before saving anything, and what you'll still enter by hand.
What Can Be Imported, and What Can't
- Customers and suppliers — Masters → Parties → Import.
- Items (parts and products) — Masters → Item Master → Import: Item Name and Category are required; code, purchase and selling price, MRP, GST %, HSN/SAC and barcode are optional.
- Past purchase bills — Purchase → Purchase → Import.
- Not from a file: customers' opening (udhaar) balances, old job cards and old sales bills. There is no direct Tally import either.
All three importers read .xlsx, .xls and .csv files and work the same way: download the template, fill it (or use your own sheet), and Kiwikit shows a preview of every row before anything is saved.
Before You Import
Clean the sheet first (ten minutes, not a day)
- One customer per row, with the mobile number in its own column — not 'Ramesh 98xxxxxxxx' in one cell
- Mobile numbers: +91, spaces and dashes are fine, but a number with a leading 0 (11 digits) or a missing digit is refused
- Delete repeated customers, or leave them — the second one with the same mobile is skipped
- Keep dates in one format, DD/MM/YYYY
- Write item names the same way on every row ('Battery Redmi 9', not 'redmi 9 batt' on one line and 'Battery - Redmi 9' on the next)
Step 1
Import Customers (and Suppliers)
Open Masters → Parties, press Import and download the template. It has these columns in this order. Only Name and Mobile are required:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Name | Required |
| Mobile | Required — 10 digits, one customer per number |
| Type | Customer, Supplier or Both. Blank means Customer |
| Group | Must match a customer / supplier group you have. Blank takes the default |
| Salutation | Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. or M/s |
| Email, Address, Area, Village, Taluka, District, State, Pincode | Optional. Pincode must be 6 digits |
| GSTIN, PAN | Optional, checked the same way as the customer form |
| Credit Limit, Credit Days | Optional numbers |
You don't have to rename your own headings. "Customer Name", "Mobile No", "Phone", "Contact No", "GST No" and "City" are recognised. Choose the file and Kiwikit shows how many rows are ready, how many are skipped, and which need fixing, line by line with the reason. A mobile number that is already a customer, or appears twice in the file, is skipped. The existing customer is never changed. Rows with problems can be downloaded as a sheet with a "Problem" column, corrected, and imported again. One file can hold up to 2,000 rows.
Step 2
Import Past Purchase Bills
Open Purchase → Purchase and press Import. One row is one item line of a bill:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Bill No | Required. Rows with the same Bill No and Supplier become one bill |
| Date | Required, as DD/MM/YYYY |
| Supplier | Required. Matched by name, or by Supplier Mobile |
| Supplier Mobile | Needed for a supplier who is new to Kiwikit |
| Item | Required. Matched by item name or item code |
| Qty, Rate | Required |
| GST % | Or CGST % + SGST %, or IGST %, or the tax amounts. Blank takes the item's own rate |
| HSN/SAC | Optional |
| Paid, Payment Mode | Optional. The unpaid part is recorded as owed to the supplier |
Kiwikit first asks one question: do these bills bring their goods into stock? Choose "Yes — add to stock" if the goods are not counted yet. Choose "No — record only" if you have already entered opening stock. That way you get the bills and supplier dues without counting the stock twice.
Each bill is then checked with the same rules as a bill typed on the purchase screen, including GST. If a supplier, item or payment mode in the file is not in Kiwikit, you fix it once for every row that uses it: pick an existing one or create it. New items go into a category you choose. A bill already in Kiwikit with the same supplier and bill number is skipped. A bill whose "Paid" is more than its total is refused. One file can hold up to 3,000 rows. The template's "Example" sheet is never imported, so fill the "Purchases" sheet.
The Mistake: Adding Stock Twice
If you count your shelf and enter opening stock, then import last year's purchase bills with "add to stock", every part is counted twice. Decide once: either the bills bring the stock in, or the opening stock does. That is why Kiwikit asks before it reads the file.
Coming From Tally or Another Billing Software?
Some repair shops look at Kiwikit as a Tally alternative because they want job cards, technicians and WhatsApp updates in the same place as billing. To be clear: Kiwikit has no direct Tally import. Export the customer list and purchase register to Excel, match the columns above, and import. For purchases, a sheet that has CGST and SGST (or IGST) columns instead of GST % is fine; Kiwikit works out the rate.
Or let us do it — free
Send us your Excel sheet, a notebook scan or even a WhatsApp customer list. Our team migrates it free of cost when you sign up for an annual plan. If you also need GST bills from day one, see Kiwikit GST billing software.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Kiwikit import directly from Tally?
No. There is no direct Tally import. What you can do is export your customer list or purchase register from Tally (or any other software) to Excel, arrange it into Kiwikit's template columns, and import that file. For purchases, a file with CGST, SGST or IGST columns works too; Kiwikit works out the GST rate from them.
Will importing the same file twice create duplicates?
No. A customer whose mobile number is already in Kiwikit is skipped, and so is a purchase bill with the same supplier and bill number. You can fix the rows that failed and import the whole file again safely.
Are customers' old udhaar balances imported?
Not through the file. Opening balances are entered on each customer, where every change is logged with who made it and why. If you have many, ask us — it is part of the free migration.
Can I import my old job cards or sales bills?
There is no importer for past job cards or sales bills. Most shops start new job cards in Kiwikit from day one, bring in the customer list so repeat customers are found by mobile number, and carry old dues as opening balances.
Who does the free data migration?
Kiwikit's own team. Send us your Excel sheet, a scan of your notebook or even a WhatsApp customer list, and we set it up for you free when you sign up for an annual plan.
Read next
Not sure you've outgrown the spreadsheet? Read mobile shop software in Excel: where it breaks. Bringing old dues across? See how to track udhaar in a shop. Stock after the move is covered in Kiwikit inventory software.
Try Kiwikit Free for 3 Days
Import customers, items and past purchase bills from Excel with a full preview, or send us the file and we migrate it free on an annual plan.