How to move from Excel to a CRM without losing data
A spreadsheet isn't wrong — it just stops being enough one day. Three signs that day has come, preparing your CSV, what not to drag along, and what to do in the first week after import.
Excel is the most widely used CRM in the world — and to begin with, it's perfectly enough. This article isn't about a spreadsheet being wrong. It's about how to recognise the day it stopped being enough, and how to move from it to a CRM without losing anything.
Three signs your spreadsheet has stopped being enough
First: you've stopped opening it. The data is in there, but nobody looks at it — the spreadsheet has become a graveyard of contacts. Second: several people work in it and multiple versions exist — final, final2 and final-really. Third: you need the data to alert you on its own — to a date, a renewal, a promise — and a spreadsheet simply can't do that.
Preparing the data: an hour that pays off
The basic rule: one row = one person or one company. Standardise the columns (name, company, email, phone, note), split merged cells, delete empty rows. Then save as a CSV in UTF-8 encoding — that's the format every CRM reads, Lemnio included, and UTF-8 makes sure accents survive the journey.
What not to bring along
A migration is a rare chance to tidy up. Contacts nobody can identify, duplicates and ten-year-old addresses — leave them in the spreadsheet; you can always import them later. What belongs in the new system is the living and the promising: existing customers and enquiries worth following up on.
The first week after import
Import is the start, not the goal. The value comes in the first week: go through your twenty most important customers and give each one a date and a reason for the next step. That turns a database into a memory — a system that starts speaking up on its own. Without this step, you've only relocated the graveyard.
The most common mistakes
Trying to move everything at once and perfectly (a month of prep, zero results). Running the spreadsheet and the CRM in parallel (two versions of the truth — pick one). And putting the migration off to a calmer time that never comes — an afternoon is enough.
In Lemnio you import a CSV in a few minutes, and the free plan (100 companies and 200 contacts forever) is more than enough for a first migration — start free.
And if you'd rather not deal with CSVs, we'll convert your data manually and free of charge — send us the spreadsheet at [email protected] and we'll do the rest with you.