Best practices for using the Excel import utility
Using PlanGuru's Excel import utility is simple, but the first step is generating a report from your accounting system (G/L) system that is appropriately formatted.
Excel Import Requirements/Notes:
1. Users must import their full CofA / Financial Statements together, running the import one financial statement will not work. Consequently your import file should include both balance sheet and income statement.
2. When using the Excel import tool, you only need to map your accounts during the first import. On all subsequent imports your account assignments will be retained. PlanGuru retains these assignments using account numbers and descriptions. To ensure your account assignments get remembered, use a complete import file that has consistently named descriptions.
3. Its best to produce a report output that doesn't have excess "Total rows' or headers. We don't want to map these rows into PlanGuru, we only want the account values. For this reason a "trial balance" format can be helpful.
Your First Import:
Many time the first import is the most tricky. This is because users are typically loading multiple periods of data. Consequently for your first import you may want to use a G/L report that is in a "Trend" format, displaying multiple periods at once. This will speed up your import process because it will allow you to load all of your historical data at once.