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Importing your client list

Upload the spreadsheet you already keep. Nothing is written until you have seen every row.

Where to start

Clients → Import from Excel. Either upload your own file or download the template first — it carries all 32 columns with two worked example rows.

The first row of your sheet must be the headings. A title banner above them is fine; the importer looks for the first row it recognises two or more headings in.

Your headings, not ours

You do not need to rename anything. These are all recognised on sight:

If your column saysIt becomes
Customer Name · Company · Entity · Trade NameClient name (required)
CT No · CT TRN · Corporate Tax NumberCorporate tax TRN
VAT No · TRN · Tax Registration NumberVAT TRN
Filing Period · VAT Cycle · Return PeriodVAT filing period
Year End · FYE · Financial Year EndFinancial year end
Incorporation · DOI · Registration DateIncorporation date
Accountant · Handled By · Assigned ToAccountant
Fee · Retainer · Monthly FeeBilling amount

Anything not recognised appears in a dropdown on the first screen so you can point it at the right field by hand. Anything you leave as skip is ignored.

How dates are read

Day-first, as UAE firms write them. 31/12/2025, 2025-12-31, 31 Dec 2025 and a real Excel date all work.

A date that cannot exist — 31/13/2025, or 29 February in a non-leap year — is refused and flagged on the row, not quietly turned into something else. An unambiguous month-first date like 03/15/2026 is read the right way round.

A year end can be written 31/12, 31-12, 31/12/2025 or just December. Yes/no columns accept Y, Yes, True, 1 or a tick.

Nothing is written until you have looked

The second screen shows every row as one of three things:

  • New — will be created.
  • Already on the desk — matched by name or by TRN. You choose whether to leave them alone or update them from the file.
  • Skipped — no client name, or the same name or TRN appears earlier in the file. The reason is printed on the row.

“Update them from the file” only touches columns your file actually has. If your sheet has just a name and a VAT number, the contact, licence, year end and the whole CT and VAT schedule of the existing client are left exactly as they were. A closed client is not reopened.

What happens when you press the button

Each client is created through the same path as one typed by hand, so the registrations, set-up tasks and deadlines raise themselves. The activity log records “client created from a spreadsheet import” against every one.

A corporate tax number in the file means the FTA has already registered that client, so no registration task is raised for them. A client marked below threshold for VAT is given no filing cycle, because there is no return to invent.

If something looks wrong

  • Nothing matched — your headings are unusual. Map them by hand on the first screen; it takes a minute and the file will import fine.
  • A column vanished — check it was mapped, not left on skip.
  • Too many duplicates — you are probably importing a file you have already imported. Set the duplicate handling to leave them alone and only the genuinely new rows are created.