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: 1 to 64 characters, letters, numbers, dots, hyphens and underscores, and the first character must be a letter or a number. 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
The page tracks you across four steps: Upload, Review, Confirm, Done. Nothing is written to your records until you clear Confirm.
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
Drop the file on the upload area ("Drop your CSV here, or click to choose it"), or click it to pick the file. 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. When it finishes you land on Done.
Rows with no email and no phone can't be matched
Duplicate detection needs an email, or a name plus a phone number. A row carrying only a name has nothing to match on, so it is always treated as a new customer. Import the same file twice and those people are created twice. Fill in an email or a phone number wherever you can before importing.
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.
Rate limits
Imports are deliberately throttled, so plan your sample runs rather than uploading repeatedly:
| Action | Limit |
|---|---|
| Uploading a file for preview | 5 per hour per user, and 10 per day across the company |
| Confirming an import | 3 per day across the company |
| Undoing an import | 3 per day across the company |
Previews are the generous one because they change nothing. If you hit the daily confirm limit you'll have to wait; there's no override.