# Excel to CRM Migration: A Practical Guide

Spreadsheets are where every small business starts. Contacts, deals, projects — Excel does it all, until it doesn't. Eventually you hit version control nightmares, broken formulas, and the dread of "which file is the latest?"

Migrating from Excel to a proper CRM doesn't have to take weeks. Here's how to do it in under 30 minutes.

## 1. Audit your spreadsheet

Before importing, take 5 minutes to review:

- **Which sheets are the system of record?** Often, only one or two sheets hold real data; the rest are pivots, exports, or stale copies.
- **What relationships exist?** A "Contacts" sheet that references a "Companies" sheet by name is a relational structure waiting to be modeled.
- **Which columns are computed?** Formulas like commission splits or running totals should become calculated fields in your new CRM, not raw values.

## 2. Clean before you import

The fastest migrations are the ones where data quality is fixed _before_ import, not after:

- Remove header rows and empty separator rows.
- Standardize date formats (ISO 8601: `YYYY-MM-DD` is unambiguous everywhere).
- Resolve obvious duplicates (`John Smith` vs `john smith` vs `J. Smith`).

A 90% clean spreadsheet imports in minutes. A 60% clean one takes hours of cleanup in the new tool.

## 3. Map columns intelligently

Modern CRMs use AI to suggest column mappings — `Email Address` → `email`, `Acct Mgr` → `Account Manager`. Review the suggestions but trust the obvious ones; manual mapping is where time goes to die.

For columns the AI doesn't recognize, ask: is this a property of a single object, or a relationship to another object? "Last Contact Date" is a property of a Contact. "Account Owner Name" is a relationship to a User.

## 4. Recreate calculated fields

Don't import computed values as static numbers — they'll go stale the moment your underlying data changes. Recreate them as calculated fields in the CRM, where they update automatically.

A typical commission spreadsheet has 3–5 calculated columns. Each one becomes a calculated field, and now the math is auditable, transparent, and always current.

## 5. Set up access controls

Spreadsheets default to "everyone with the link can edit." A CRM defaults to role-based access. Spend 10 minutes thinking about who needs to see what:

- **Admins** see everything.
- **Sales reps** see their own deals plus shared accounts.
- **Operations** see all data but read-only.

Get this right on day one and you won't have to redo it later.

## What you gain

Once you're off spreadsheets:

- **Real-time collaboration** — no more "I'll send the latest version."
- **Audit trails** — who changed what, when, and from what.
- **Encryption at rest** — sensitive fields (revenue, commissions, contracts) are protected even from your CRM provider.
- **Automation** — workflow triggers replace the manual updates that nobody remembers to do.

The migration is the hard part. Once you're across, you wonder how you ever ran a business out of `Master_v3_FINAL_revised.xlsx`.