Import your data from Commusoft

Before You Start

Switch from Commusoft turns the reports you export from Commusoft into the files Manifold’s importers take, and numbers them in the order to import them. It does not import anything itself: you check what it made, download the files, and import each one with the importer’s own preview and undo. Run it as an office user who can check the result, and keep Commusoft running, read-only, until you are happy with what landed.

• Where it is: Switch from Commusoft, a button on Clients and in the Import & organise menu on Properties (owner and office accounts).
• Your reports are read in your browser and are not sent to Manifold, so nothing is stored and there is nothing to delete afterwards.
• What comes across: customers (as clients, and as homeowners for private customers with no work addresses), work addresses (as properties, with the occupier, the landlord and whether the address is still active), appliances, gas safety history and renewal dates, boiler service dates, past jobs, jobs still open, invoices and credit notes with their net, VAT and CIS, and the payments against them.
• What does not: certificate PDFs, and anything not in the seven reports below. See What Does Not Come Across.
• Switching a whole account, or want a hand? We offer a concierge migration, free while we’re in early access: we do this for you and check the totals against Commusoft. The tool and the service use the same rules, so you can start with the tool and ask for help at any point.

Export Your Data From Commusoft

Export up to seven reports from Commusoft, each with every column it offers, and save them as CSV. You do not need all seven: the files for the reports you add are made and the rest wait, so you can start with customers and work addresses and add the others later. Columns can be in any order, and a column Manifold does not use is ignored.

• Customers. Becomes your clients, and tells us who is an agent, a company, a landlord or a homeowner. Columns it reads: Customer ID (needed), Name, Customer type, Address line 1, Postcode, Company name, Title, First name, Last name, Account number, Status, Address line 2, Address line 3, Town or city, Telephone, Mobile, Email, Contact name, Notes.
• Work addresses. Becomes your properties, with the occupier, the landlord and whether the address is still active. Columns it reads: Work address ID (needed), Customer ID (needed), Address line 1 (needed), Postcode, Landlord name, Active or inactive, Address line 2, Address line 3, Town or city, Occupier name, Occupier telephone, Occupier mobile, Occupier email, Landlord email, Landlord telephone, Landlord address, Date created, Notes, Work address account number.
• Appliances. Becomes the appliance register. Decommissioned, removed and electric appliances are left out. Columns it reads: Appliance ID (needed), Work address ID, Customer ID, Appliance type, Fuel, Status, Appliance group, Make, Model, Flue code, GC number, Serial number, Location, Notes.
• Service reminders. Gives each property its gas safety renewal date and its boiler service date. Export it a year at a time. Columns it reads: Service type (needed), Due date (needed), Work address ID, Customer ID, Reminder ID.
• Jobs. Becomes your past gas safety checks, past jobs and open work. Columns it reads: Job ID (needed), Work address ID, Customer ID, Description, Status, Date completed, Job number, At the customer's own address, Notes, Completed, Job date, Engineer, Recall, Certificates.
• Sales (invoices and credit notes). Becomes your invoice and credit note history. Columns it reads: Sale ID (needed), Total (needed), Invoice number, Type, Customer ID, Work address ID, Job ID, Invoice date, Net, VAT, Balance, Supply date, Due date, VAT rate, CIS, Paid, Customer reference, Description, Status.
• Payments. Becomes the payments against those invoices. Columns it reads: Payment ID (needed), Payment date (needed), Amount (needed), Sale ID, Method, Invoice number, Reference.

1. 1In Commusoft, open each report in the list above. Before you download it, add every column the report offers: Commusoft’s Download to Excel writes only the columns on screen.
2. 2Commusoft limits how many rows one download holds (5,000 when we last looked). For a bigger report, download it in parts, by date for example, and add every part: the parts are joined, and a row that appears in two parts counts once.
3. 3Service reminders need a date range, so download them a year at a time and add each year.
4. 4Open each download in Excel and choose Save As, then CSV UTF-8. A file that is still a spreadsheet, or a web page saved with a spreadsheet name, is refused with that instruction.
5. 5Drop all the CSV files into the tool together. It works out which report each one is from its column names and asks you when it cannot tell.

What The Tool Does With Your Reports

These are the rules the first Commusoft migration was done by, now built in. Every row keeps its Commusoft id as its source reference and names its parent by that id, so the importers link records by id and never by name and address, and importing the same files again adds nothing twice.

• Customers: estate agents become letting agent clients, companies become Other, a private customer with work addresses becomes a landlord, and a private customer with none becomes a homeowner client linked to their own home. Each client keeps the customer’s own postal address, which a landlord’s gas safety certificate prints and an invoice bills to. Two customers with one name stay two clients.
• Account numbers: a customer’s account number becomes the client’s account number, and a work address’s own account number (from a column named for the address, not the customer’s) the property’s, exactly as Commusoft has it, so the numbers your office and your agents quote stay the same. A number Manifold cannot take (more than 30 characters, a character it does not allow, or one that repeats an earlier record’s ignoring capitals) is left blank so the record takes the next C or P number, the tool counts each with its reason, and the number stays in the record’s notes. The Commusoft ids still go in the source reference, which is a different thing.
• Work addresses: addresses with the same first line, second line and postcode are one property. The active, newest record leads and the other Commusoft ids are kept as its other references, so a later file that names any of them finds the same property. An address that is inactive in Commusoft comes in archived, with no renewal date.
• A customer’s own address becomes a property when it has appliances, jobs or a service reminder, and always for a homeowner. If it is also one of the customer’s work addresses it is the same property.
• The occupier and landlord: placeholders such as Mr Occupier and The Occupier are left blank, No numbers saved is blank, a phone written +44 07… becomes 07…, and HTML in notes becomes plain text. A separate landlord on a work address goes in the property’s landlord fields, and the customer, usually an agent, stays the client.
• Values Manifold would refuse: the importers refuse what Manifold’s forms refuse, so the tool keeps such a value in the record’s notes rather than in its field, and the record still comes across. A phone number nobody could ring (a word or an address in the phone column) is kept as Phone from Commusoft, and the record’s other number is used if it can be rung. A name too long for its field is shortened at a word, with the full name in the notes. A postcode that is not a UK postcode, and a reminder, job or invoice date before 2000 or more than 10 years ahead, are kept in the notes of the client, property, job or invoice. So is a gas safety reminder due more than 14 months after the property’s latest check, which the importer would refuse: the renewal date is then 12 months after that check. The tool counts each kind in its summary.
• Appliances: decommissioned, removed and electric appliances are left out. Flue codes (RS, OF, FL, BF, CF) are written out, a note typed in the serial number field is moved to the appliance’s notes, a placeholder serial such as unknown is left blank, and an appliance entered twice is kept once.
• Jobs: the job type comes from the description (Gas Safety Test, CP12 & Service, Boiler Breakdown and so on). Finished gas safety visits become past checks and every other finished job a past job. Jobs still open become open work, booked on their date or waiting on To book; a job on hold in Commusoft comes in On hold, with no date. A gas safety visit still open is not imported: book it from Gas safety checks so it comes with its certificate workflow. The tool lists those in a file of their own. Cancelled jobs are left out.
• Renewal dates: a property’s renewal date is its latest Gas Safety Certificate reminder, unless a check is newer or on the same day, in which case it is twelve months from that check. The Boiler Service reminder gives the next service date, kept apart from the gas safety date, and the last finished visit that included a service gives the last service date.
• Invoices and credit notes: the total, net, VAT and CIS come across, with the customer’s reference and the property and job each belongs to. An invoice with a balance of nothing is Paid. A credit note is kept as a credit. If net plus VAT does not equal the total in Commusoft’s figures, the invoice comes in with its total only and the tool tells you how many.
• Payments: one row each, against its invoice by Commusoft id, with the date, amount, method and reference. They are history: nothing is sent to an accounting package.

Check What It Made, Then Import In Order

Before anything is downloaded the tool shows how many rows each file has, every row it left out with the reason and a few example ids, and the things worth knowing, such as how many addresses were merged. Read that list: it is the reconciliation against Commusoft.

1. 1Under Download, then import in this order, choose Download all as a zip, or download each file in turn. They are numbered in the order to import them, and a file with more rows than an importer takes is split into numbered parts.
2. 2Clients: Clients, then Import CSV.
3. 3Properties: Properties, Import & organise, then Import CSV. If the file brings renewal dates and Commusoft is still sending reminders to your landlords, answer Yes, hold Manifold’s reminders when asked, so nobody hears twice, and turn them back on from Properties on the day you stop using Commusoft.
4. 4Appliances: Appliances, then Import CSV.
5. 5Past gas safety checks: Gas safety checks, then Import CSV, and choose Commusoft as where the file came from.
6. 6Past jobs: Work, Detailed job list & actions, Import, then Import CSV, choose History for What are you importing, and Commusoft as the source. Each past job and check keeps the engineer Commusoft had on it, and a past job whose engineer is already in your team under the same full name is linked to them, so invite the engineers who are staying first. Anyone you add later is offered their history in one click on the Engineers page (see Engineers and Team).
7. 7Open jobs: do this one on the day you switch, after your engineers have logins, so a booked job lands on its engineer’s run in one place only. Work, Detailed job list & actions, Import, then Import CSV, choose Open work and Commusoft as the source.
8. 8Invoices: Invoices, Accounts tools, then Import CSV, after the past checks and past jobs so each invoice finds its job. Then Accounts tools, Import payments.
9. 9Each importer shows a preview first. Read its errors: a row it cannot place is cheaper to fix in the file than afterwards. Every import can be undone from its result screen; undo the payments before the invoices.

What Does Not Come Across

• Certificate PDFs. Commusoft keeps them against the job, and the reports do not hold them. Past gas safety checks come in as read-only history with no document. If you can get the PDFs out, the certificate archive takes them in bulk: name each file with the Commusoft job number first (19833 TN24 9LW.pdf) and it lands on the right property and against that job’s imported check (see Import your data from Gas Engineer Software).
• Anything that is not in the seven reports: quotes, contracts, price lists, photos and documents.
• Engineer logins. Invite your engineers in Manifold before you import open jobs, so each job is assigned to the engineer it names. Past checks and past jobs keep the engineer’s name as text, and you can link it to a person later.
• Decommissioned, removed and electric appliances, cancelled jobs, gas safety visits still open (listed for you to book), and a finished gas safety visit dated in the future or before 2000, which cannot be a past check (listed with the reason).
• VAT history. Under standard VAT accounting, imported invoices stay out of Manifold’s VAT figures. Under cash accounting, a new payment recorded in Manifold against an imported invoice can count when received; importing old payment history does not count it again. Reconcile the quarter you switch with your accountant, because neither system holds the whole return.

Run in Parallel Until You Are Happy

• Keep Commusoft read-only while you settle in, and do not cancel it until you have checked Manifold against it: counts of clients, properties, appliances, jobs and invoices, the total value of the invoices, and a handful of properties end to end.
• Anything added in Commusoft after your export needs a catch-up: export the reports again, run the tool again and import the files in the same order. Rows already in come back as already present, and only the new ones are added. You can run the tool with only some of the reports (the new jobs and sales, say): the files then name the customers, properties and jobs they belong to by their Commusoft ids, which must already be in Manifold, and the tool says which reports it assumed.
• A long overdue list after the switch is usually properties you no longer look after. Tick them on Properties and choose Mark as no longer ours.
• See also CSV Imports and Templates for the columns each importer takes.