When you're moving from another garage management system, you don't want to hand-type hundreds of customer + vehicle records. Pistonlog's CSV importer takes a single combined CSV and creates both customers and their vehicles in one go.
What columns to include
The importer only accepts the Pistonlog template: download it from the Import page (Download template) and keep every heading exactly as supplied.
| Column | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Pistonlog Template Version | yes | Enter 1 on every row |
Customer Reference | yes | Your own ID for the customer (letters, numbers, dots, hyphens, underscores). Repeat the same reference, with identical customer details, to link several vehicles to one customer |
Customer First Name | see note | At least one of first name, last name, or business name is required |
Customer Last Name | see note | As above |
Customer Business Name | no | Trading-as / sole-trader name |
Customer Email | no | Optional; needed for email reminders |
Customer Phone | no | Digits and common phone punctuation |
Customer Address | no | Single field; not split by street/city |
Customer On Stop Reason | no | Fill in to mark the customer as On stop |
Contact By Email | no | TRUE or FALSE; blank counts as TRUE |
Contact By SMS | no | TRUE or FALSE; blank counts as TRUE |
Vehicle Registration | no | 2–10 letters/numbers. Required if any other vehicle column is filled; if present, a vehicle is created (or matched) and linked |
Vehicle Make | no | Vehicle make |
Vehicle Model | no | Vehicle model |
Vehicle Year | no | Four-digit year of manufacture |
Vehicle Colour | no | Vehicle colour |
Vehicle Fuel Type | no | "Petrol" / "Diesel" / etc. |
Vehicle Engine Size | no | Engine size |
Vehicle MOT Due Date | no | ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD) |
Vehicle Mileage | no | Whole number |
One row per customer + vehicle pair; a customer without a vehicle is fine. Up to 1,000 rows or 4 MB per file, UTF-8 encoded.
How to import
Open the Import page
Click your company name at the top of the sidebar, then Import customers and vehicles. Only the company owner can run an import.
Upload the CSV
Click Choose Pistonlog CSV. Pistonlog validates every row and stages a preview; nothing is written to your records yet.
Review the preview
The preview shows how many customers, vehicles, and links will be created, and flags rows with errors. Every row must be valid before you can import: fix the CSV and re-upload (or Discard the run). Rows that pair a customer with a vehicle they were previously marked as no longer owning need explicit confirmation too.
Confirm and import
Click Confirm and import and enter your owner password. Duplicate customers are detected by email OR by name + phone — matches are linked to the existing record (left unchanged) rather than creating doubles. Vehicles are matched by registration the same way.
What it doesn't import
Jobcards, payments, invoices, comments, inspections — none of these come across. The CSV is the starting point for customer + vehicle records; everything else accrues as you work.
Test with a small batch first
A completed import can be undone with Undo import for 24 hours (owner password required), but only if the imported records haven't been edited since, and it removes only what the import created. Try a 20-row sample first to make sure your data format is right. Imports are also rate-limited (a few preview and commit runs per day per company).