CSV & Excel Import

CSV & Excel import lets you bulk-create individuals, companies, trusts, SMSFs, partnerships, and assets (including liabilities) from a spreadsheet, instead of adding them one at a time through the entity forms. You fill in a template — either a plain .csv file or a .xlsx (Excel) workbook — and StructureGram creates one entity per row.

Why Use It?

• Bring in data you already have. If a client's structure already lives in a spreadsheet, you don't need to retype it by hand.
• Create many entities at once. One upload can create dozens of individuals, companies, or other entities in a single import.
• Get the format right before you upload. Both templates list the exact columns each entity type accepts, and the Excel template's dropdowns stop invalid values in selectable columns before you ever click Upload.

Note: CSV & Excel import creates entities only — it does not create relationships (director, shareholder, trustee, and so on) between them. Add those afterwards using StructureGram's normal relationship tools. See Creating Relationships.

Which entities you can import

Each entity type has its own file, matched by name:

You don't have to upload all six — only include the ones you need. An asset row with a financialProfile of liability creates a liability rather than an asset.

Some details aren't available through import: nested structures like company share classes, trust unit classes, structured addresses, and an individual's health conditions must still be added through the entity's normal edit screen after import.

CSV vs Excel: which should you use?

Both formats create the same entities — the difference is how easy they make it to enter valid data.

Use the Excel template whenever you can. For every selectable column — one whose value comes from a fixed list, like sex, companyType, trustType, status, or assetType — the Excel template gives you a genuine in-cell dropdown, so you pick a value instead of remembering (or mistyping) something like discretionary or residential-property. Yes/no columns (such as a company's isCharity or a trust's isHybrid) and free-text, number, and date columns don't get a dropdown in either format, so they're only checked at upload. The plain CSV template lists the same columns, but it can't validate anything you type — a small typo won't be caught until StructureGram rejects that row during upload.

Downloading a template

On the CSV Import page (Import Hub → CSV Import), each entity type has its own row with two download links — one for .csv, one for .xlsx. Download whichever format you want to use for each entity type you're importing.

• The CSV template is just the header row, with the correct column names for that entity type.
• The Excel template has the same header row, plus a dropdown on every selectable column (the ones whose value comes from a fixed list). Other columns, including yes/no fields, are plain cells in both formats.

Filling in the template

• One row per entity. Each row becomes one individual, company, trust, SMSF, partnership, or asset.
• Leave a cell blank if that field doesn't apply — an empty cell means "not provided," not an empty value.
• In the Excel template, use the dropdowns. Click a cell in a selectable column (like sex or companyType) and a dropdown arrow appears — choose a value from the list instead of typing it.
• In the CSV template, match the allowed values exactly. Values are case-sensitive, so Active and active are not interchangeable — check which one the column expects.
• Numbers: enter plain numbers, with no currency symbols or thousands separators.
• Yes/no fields: use true/false, yes/no, or 1/0.
• Dates: type them as YYYY-MM-DD — for example 2020-04-03 for 3 April 2020. This is the only written format the import accepts; see Dates below.
• Extra leading or trailing spaces in a cell are trimmed automatically, so a stray space from copy-pasting won't cause a mismatch.

Dates

Write every date as YYYY-MM-DD — four-digit year, two-digit month, two-digit day, separated by hyphens. 3 April 2020 is 2020-04-03.

This applies to every date column: dateOfBirth, dateOfDeath, incorporationDate, deregistrationDate, settledDate, vestingDate, establishedDate, maturityDate, groupJoinDate and groupExitDate.

In the Excel template, click any date cell and a hint appears reminding you of the format. There are two ways to get a date right:

1. Type it as YYYY-MM-DD. This is the recommended option and what the template is set up for — date columns are formatted as Text, so what you type is exactly what StructureGram reads.
2. Format the column as a Date in Excel, then enter the date however you like. Excel stores a real date rather than text, and StructureGram converts it for you on upload.

Warning: Day-first dates like 3/4/2020 are rejected, not guessed at. 3/4/2020 means 3 April in Australia and 4 March in a file exported from a US system, and nothing in the cell says which. Rather than risk writing a wrong date of birth or incorporation date into a client's structure, StructureGram rejects the row and tells you which cell to fix.

Anything that isn't YYYY-MM-DD is rejected with a message naming the row and the column — including 3 April 2020, 03-04-2020 and 2020/04/03. Dates that don't exist, such as 2021-02-30, are rejected too.

If you see "looks like Excel's internal date number": the cell contains something like 43922. That happens when a date column is left on Excel's General format — Excel converts what you typed into its internal day count, and the file has no date in it any more by the time you upload. Either format the column as Date, or format it as Text and retype the date as YYYY-MM-DD.

Leave a date cell blank if you don't know it. A blank is "not recorded" and is always accepted; you can fill it in later on the entity's own screen.

Where the imported entities go

Imported entities are assigned to whichever groups you choose in the Group assignment card at the top of the review screen, above the entity tabs.

• It defaults to your active group — the one shown in the group selector at the top of the app. Usually that is already what you want, and you can leave it alone.
• You can choose more than one group, or create a new group from the picker.
• You can leave it empty to import without any group assignment. The entities are still created; they just don't belong to a group.

Tip: If you're importing a new client's structure, switch to (or create) that client's group before you start, so the default is already right. The selection applies to every row in the batch — there is no per-row group choice.

Tip: Don't rename the file, and don't add or rename columns. StructureGram matches uploaded files by name (individuals.csv, companies.xlsx, and so on) and checks the header row against the columns it expects for that entity type — an unrecognised or duplicated column is rejected rather than silently ignored. You can leave out columns you don't need and put the ones you keep in any order: cells are read by column name, not position, so a trimmed-down export with only the columns you have is fine (as long as the required ones, like a name, are still there).

Uploading your files

1. Go to Import Hub → CSV Import.
2. Drag your filled-in files onto the upload area, or click it to browse. You can upload a mix of CSV and Excel files in the same batch — for example, individuals.xlsx alongside companies.csv.
3. Each recognised file appears next to its entity type, with its size shown. A file with an unexpected name is flagged so you can rename or replace it.
4. Click Upload and Review.

Reviewing before you import

After upload, StructureGram parses every row and takes you to a review screen with one tab per entity type. For companies and individuals, it also checks your existing workspace for likely duplicates and suggests Link instead of Create where it finds a strong match. For each row you can choose:

• Create — add it as a new entity.
• Link — connect the row to one of the suggested existing entities instead of creating a duplicate. This option only appears on company and individual rows where duplicate detection found at least one possible match; a row with no suggested matches offers just Create and Skip, and there's no search to link it to an arbitrary existing entity.
• Skip — leave this row out of the import entirely.

Nothing is created until you click Confirm & Execute. If any rows still need a decision, the button stays disabled until you've made one for every row.

If a file is rejected

If a row fails validation — an unrecognised column, a missing required value, a value that isn't in a selectable column's allowed list, a number that isn't a number, a date that isn't YYYY-MM-DD — the upload is rejected and nothing is imported, so you never end up with a half-completed batch. The error message names the file, the row, and what was wrong with it, so you can fix that cell and re-upload.

Every problem in a row is reported at once, so you can fix a row in one pass rather than discovering the next fault on the next upload.

This is exactly the kind of mistake the Excel template is designed to prevent before you get this far: dropdowns on selectable columns, a Required hint on columns that can't be left blank, and a Date format hint on date columns.

Common questions

Should I use CSV or Excel? Excel, unless you have a reason not to. Only the Excel template can give you dropdowns for selectable columns, mark which columns are required, and remind you of the date format. A CSV is just text — nothing is checked until you upload.

Do I have to fill in every column? No. Only the required ones — the Excel template marks them, and a missing one is reported against the row. Leave anything you don't know blank.

Why was my date rejected when it looks fine? Almost always because it's day-first (3/4/2020) or slash-separated (2020/04/03). Use 2020-04-03.

Can I import relationships — directors, shareholders, trustees? No. CSV & Excel import creates entities only. Add relationships afterwards; see Creating Relationships.

Which group will the entities land in? Whatever is selected under Group assignment on the review screen, which defaults to your active group. You can change it there before you execute.

Can I undo an import? Not as a batch. Nothing is created until you click Confirm & Execute, so the review screen is the place to catch problems — use Skip on rows you don't want. Afterwards you'd remove entities individually.

Can I upload the same file twice? You can, and it will create duplicates unless you use Link or Skip on the review screen. Duplicate suggestions only appear for companies and individuals.

Does import overwrite my existing entities? No. Import only creates new entities, or links a row to an existing one if you choose Link. It never edits an existing entity's details.

Limits

• 25MB per file.
• 500 rows per file, and 500 rows across all the files in one upload — split a larger dataset into multiple uploads if you need more.

Related Topics

• Data Importing — the ASIC extract review-and-execute workflow, which CSV & Excel import shares the review step with
• Import Hub — the launchpad for all import types
• Managing Entities — creating and editing entities individually
• Creating Relationships — add relationships between entities after import