Importing Your Existing Clients

Switching from another system? You don’t have to re-enter every client by hand. Spatiko can import your client list from a CSV file, so your agents and their contact details are waiting in your client list in Spatiko from day one.

What you can import

This page covers the client import — names, contact details, and notes. There’s a separate CSV import for your past orders, which brings over the property, the shoot date, what was sold, and what was paid. Import your clients first: orders match to existing clients by email, so doing it in that order keeps everything linked instead of creating duplicate records.

Access requires business-settings permission, which owners and admins have by default.

Fields Spatiko can read

Your CSV can map columns to these fields:

• First name and last name, or a single full name column if your source doesn’t split them
• Company/brokerage name — also used to link the client to a company
• Email — required, and used to detect existing clients
• Phone — automatically parsed into international format
• Notes
• An optional external/legacy ID from your old system

That external ID is worth including if you have it: it lets you re-import the same file later (say, after cleaning it up) and have Spatiko update those same clients instead of creating duplicates.

Mapping and limits

When you upload a CSV, Spatiko automatically suggests which column maps to which field, based on common header names like “Customer Name,” “Mobile,” or “Brokerage.” Review the suggested mapping and adjust it before importing.

A single file is capped at 25,000 rows — a per-file technical limit, not something tied to your plan.

Handling errors

Each row is validated before import. A row gets flagged as an error — without stopping the rest of the import — if it has:

• A missing or invalid email
• An unparseable phone number
• A duplicate email within the same file
• A field that’s too long

The review step lists the first 100 flagged rows on screen, with a count of any beyond that. You can download a CSV report of every flagged row, fix them, and re-import just those.

How matching works

Spatiko matches each row against your existing clients first by external ID, then by email.

• Match found: Spatiko only fills in gaps — for example, adding a phone number that was missing. It never overwrites information you’ve already entered or edited in Spatiko. This is a one-time backfill, not a live sync.
• No match: Spatiko creates a new client record.

For more on what a client record holds day to day, see client records.

Companies are linked for you

If your file has a company or brokerage column, the import groups your clients into companies as it goes. For each client with a company name, Spatiko finds the company with that name — ignoring capitals, spacing, punctuation, and endings like “Inc” or “LLC” — or creates it, then links the client to it. A row that matches an existing client uses the company name already on that record if there is one.

• Nobody gets moved. A client who’s already linked to a company stays where they are.
• Placeholders are ignored. Values like “N/A”, “None”, or “Self-employed” don’t create a company.
• Archived companies come back. If the name matches a company you’d archived, it’s restored with its new members.
• Past orders stay put. A CSV import links clients but doesn’t attach their existing orders to the company. To roll those up, use Attach past orders on the company record afterwards.

The import history shows how many companies were created and how many clients were linked, alongside the usual imported, updated, and skipped counts.

One import at a time

Only one import can run per business. If you need to start another, wait for the current one to finish — or for a stalled import to time out.

Undoing an import

You can undo a completed import within 48 hours. Undo only removes client records that import created and that still have no orders, invoices, payments, or account activity attached. Anything you’ve since booked or billed against an imported client is kept safe, even if you undo. Companies the import created are removed too, unless they still have a member or an order. A client who was already in your account stays linked to the company the import gave them.

Go deeper

• Importing past orders from a CSV — bring the history that belongs to the clients you just imported.
• Moving your business to Spatiko — pick the right route first if you’re coming from HD Photo Hub or Aryeo, where a direct migration carries far more than a spreadsheet.
• Client records — what a client record holds day to day once the import lands.
• Setting up your Spatiko account — the rest of the setup if you’re just getting started.
• Connecting your tools — hook up the rest of your workflow once your list is in.