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Use this guide when you are moving your facility onto Car Storage Software and want to bring everything over at once: customers, the cars they store, the plans they pay for, and the extra people on each account. The short version: the customer’s email address is the key that ties everything together. Import customers first, then put the same email on every car and plan row.

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The example sheets

Each import comes with an example sheet that shows the exact columns the app understands. Download them, paste in your own data, and keep the header row.

Customers

Names, emails, phones, address, tags, CRM stage, and member-since date.

Cars

Year, make, model, VIN, plate, declared value, parking spot, and Customer Email.

Recurring plans

Customer Email, amount, billing interval, start date, tax, and commitment.

Historical events

Past intakes and services from your old system (Import Data page only).
You can also download each one from inside the app. On the Customers and Cars steps of the setup wizard, click Download example template. On the Recurring plans step, click Download example sheet.
Try it with demo data firstOn the Customers step, Import demo customers loads John Smith and Jane Doe from the example sheet. On the Cars step, Import demo cars loads a Porsche 911 and a Ford Mustang. It’s a safe way to see how linking works before you upload your real list. Delete the demo records when you’re done.

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Import in this order

1

Customers

Customers come first because everything else links to them.Wizard step: Setup Guide > Customers
2

Cars

Each car row links to its owner by the customer’s email (or an external ID or owner name; see below).Wizard step: Setup Guide > Cars
3

Recurring plans

Each plan links to its customer by email. Connect billing and create a recurring product first.Wizard step: Setup Guide > Recurring plans
4

Additional contacts, history, and photos (optional)

Spouses, assistants, bookkeepers, old service history, and photo archives are imported from the Import Data page.
Order mattersIf you import cars or plans before their customers exist, the car rows come in with no owner, and the plan rows are blocked with No customer with this email.
One customer, John Smith, appears in all three sheets with the same email: Rules to know:
  • Use the main customer email. Cars and plans match against the email on the customer record itself, not against an additional contact’s email.
  • Capital letters don’t matter. John.Smith@Example.com matches john.smith@example.com. Extra spaces are trimmed.
  • One customer, many cars. Repeat the same email on every car that person stores.
  • Spelling has to match exactly. A typo like jon.smith@ won’t match. The car imports with no owner, or the plan row is blocked.
If your old system doesn’t have emails for everyone, the Cars step can also link by: If you map more than one, the app tries them in this order: email, then external customer ID, then owner name. A row that has no email match falls back to the next one. When you link by owner name or include a Parking Spot column, you’ll see a Review owner & space matches screen before anything is imported. Exact matches are filled in for you. Check any suggested (fuzzy) matches, change them, or choose Skip — leave unlinked.

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Import customers

1

Upload your customer sheet

On Setup Guide > Customers, drop your file on Drop your spreadsheet here, or click to browse. CSV, XLSX, and XLS all work.
2

Check the preview

The Preview your import screen is a dry run. Nothing is saved yet. Rows with no name show missing a name and are skipped.
3

Choose how to match existing customers

Under Match existing customers by, choose Email (the default) or External customer ID.Why this matters: If a row matches a customer who’s already in the app, that customer is updated instead of duplicated. That makes it safe to import the same sheet twice.
4

Map the leftover columns

Under Column mapping, any column the app couldn’t place automatically is listed. Choose where each one goes, or create a custom field for it. Columns that already matched are under Matched columns.
5

Review and import

Click Review & import. The Confirm customer import window shows how many customers are new and how many will update existing records, with each change shown as old value → new value. Confirm to save.
Every customer needs an email to link cars and plans by emailThe app can import a customer with only a name. But without an email on the customer record, car and plan rows can’t find them by email. Use External Customer ID or owner name for those customers instead.

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Import cars

1

Upload your car sheet

On Setup Guide > Cars, drop your file on the upload area.
2

Check the Customer link column

The Vehicle preview has a Customer link column. It shows which value each row will link by, such as the email. Rows marked Empty in spreadsheet will import with no owner.
3

Review owner and space matches (if shown)

If you mapped owner names or parking spots, check the Review owner & space matches screen. Use the filter to show only rows marked Needs decision.
4

Import

Click Import (for example, Import 48 cars). If a match review is needed, the button says Review matches for 48 cars first.Expected result: Each car shows up under Customer’s Cars on its owner’s record.
A car came in with no ownerOpen the car and link it by hand. See View and edit vehicle details. For many cars, fix the emails in your sheet and import just those rows again.

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Import recurring plans

Recurring plans link to customers the same way, by Customer Email. Each row needs an amount, a billing interval, and a start date after today. You also choose whether to ask each customer for a payment method or charge a card already on file. Full walkthrough: Import recurring billing plans.

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Import additional contacts

Additional contacts are the spouses, assistants, bookkeepers, and vehicle managers who belong under a customer’s account. They aren’t separate customers. (See Manage additional contacts.) You import them on the same row as their main customer, using the Customers tab of the Import Data page. The setup wizard’s Customers step doesn’t import additional contacts.
1

Add contact columns to your customer sheet

For each extra person, add columns to the main customer’s row. For example:For a second extra person, add Contact 2 Name, Contact 2 Email, and so on.
2

Map each contact

On Import Data, stay on the Customers tab and upload the sheet. Under Additional Contacts (optional), click Add Contact once for each extra person. Then choose that person’s name, email, and phone columns.
3

Review and import

The preview shows how many additional contacts will be created. Confirm the import.
4

Turn on messages and portal access

Imported contacts start with all messages turned off and no portal access, so nobody gets an unexpected email.Open each customer, go to the Contacts section, and click the pencil icon to choose which messages this person receives (for example, Invoices & Billing for a bookkeeper). Turn on Can access customer portal if they should sign in with their own email.
Additional contacts are only added to new customersContacts on a row are created when that row creates a new customer. If the customer is already in the app, add the extra person by hand from the customer’s Contacts section.
An additional contact’s email doesn’t link cars or plansAlways use the main customer’s email in the Customer Email column of your car and plan sheets. If a spouse’s email is in that column, the row won’t find the account.

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Check your work

After you import, spot-check a few records:
  • Open All Contacts, search for a customer, and confirm their name, email, and phone.
  • On that customer, confirm their cars appear under Customer’s Cars and any extra people appear under Contacts.
  • Open Recurring billing and confirm plans show the right amount and start date.