Move Your Whole Book of Clients In on Day One
Client Import is part of HubWho. The hardest part of switching billing platforms isn't the software — it's getting every client you already have into it without a week of hand-typing. HubWho is built to skip that wall: a source-agnostic CSV importer lets you bring your client list in from a spreadsheet or an export from your current tool, auto-maps the columns, previews exactly what will land, and creates everyone in one pass. The importer brings in your client records — names, contact details, and addresses. Once your clients are in, you set up the recurring subscriptions you bill them for natively, on top of those records. HubWho is pre-launch and opening to a founding cohort of agencies — this describes the import flow being built into the platform today.
The Problem: Onboarding Stalls Before You Ever Bill Anyone
Most agencies have their clients spread across a few places at once — a spreadsheet someone keeps, the contact list inside whatever tool they bill through now, and a pile of notes. When it's time to move to a new billing platform, all of that has to be re-entered by hand, one client at a time, before the platform is useful for anything. That's the moment most migrations stall.
Hand-keying fifty or a hundred clients is slow, error-prone, and exactly the kind of work that gets put off. So the new system sits half-empty, you keep running billing the old way, and the switch never actually finishes. The longer your client list, the bigger the wall — and the more reason to never climb it.
- Clients live in a spreadsheet, your current billing tool, and people's heads all at once
- Re-typing every client by hand is slow and full of transcription errors
- Nothing in the new platform works until the clients are in it, so onboarding stalls at step one
- The bigger your book, the more daunting the move — so it keeps getting postponed
- Without a fast way to load the whole list, the platform sits half-empty and the switch never finishes
How the Importer Works
You start a CSV — export it from your current tool or build it from your own spreadsheet — and drop the file onto the import screen, or paste the rows straight in. HubWho parses it and auto-maps the common column headers it recognizes (Name, Email, Phone, Address, City, State, Zip, Country, Notes), matching them case-insensitively so your spreadsheet's exact wording doesn't have to be perfect. It's source-agnostic by design: it doesn't care which tool the export came from, only that it's a CSV with a name on each row.
Before anything is created, you get a preview. The importer shows the first rows mapped to HubWho's fields so you can see exactly what will land, with a badge on every recognized column and a clear 'ignored' badge on any header it didn't map — so nothing is silently dropped without you knowing. Rows with no client name are flagged as skipped up front, and you see the count of how many rows are ready to import.
When you confirm, HubWho creates every valid client in one pass and hands back a clean report: how many were created, how many were skipped, and the reason for each skip. Duplicate clients are caught automatically — a row whose name already exists for your agency is skipped rather than creating a second copy — so you can re-run an import or import in waves without making a mess.
- Drag-and-drop a CSV file or paste rows directly — whichever is faster for you
- Auto-mapping of common headers (Name, Email, Phone, Address, City, State, Zip, Country, Notes), matched case-insensitively
- Source-agnostic — works with an export from your current tool or a spreadsheet you built yourself
- Live preview before anything is created — recognized columns are badged, unmapped columns are clearly marked 'ignored'
- Automatic duplicate handling — rows whose client name already exists for your agency are skipped, not duplicated
- Per-row import report — created count, skipped count, and the exact reason each row was skipped
- Re-run or import in waves safely — dedup-by-name means a second pass won't create copies
From Imported Clients to Recurring Billing
The importer's job is to get your client records in fast — names, contact details, and addresses — so the platform has the foundation it needs. Subscription details aren't part of the import file; once your clients are in, you set up the subscriptions you bill each client for natively in HubWho, tie them to the products and prices you sell, and let recurring invoicing run against them on the schedule you choose.
Because every imported client is a real record in the same system that runs invoicing, payments, margin, and the client portal, there's no second migration. The clients you bring in on day one are the same clients your MRR dashboard counts, the same ones a white-label portal is created for, and the same ones recurring billing draws from. Import once, and the whole platform is built to pick up from there.
A direct 'import from your old billing tool' connector for specific platforms is on the roadmap; today the path is the source-agnostic CSV importer, which works regardless of where your list comes from.
- Imported clients become real records the rest of HubWho builds on — invoicing, payments, margin, and the portal all read from them
- Set up recurring subscriptions natively after import, tied to your own products and prices
- Recurring invoicing is built to run against those subscriptions on your schedule
- Each imported client can be given a white-label portal under your agency's branding
- No second migration — the day-one client list is the same one your MRR and KPI views count
- Direct connectors for specific billing tools are planned; the CSV importer is the live, universal path today
Frequently asked questions
What format does my client list need to be in?
A CSV — the kind of file any spreadsheet or billing tool can export. HubWho auto-maps common headers like Name, Email, Phone, Address, City, State, Zip, Country, and Notes, matching them case-insensitively, so your column wording doesn't have to be exact. As long as each row has a client name, it can be imported.
Does the importer bring in my clients' subscriptions too?
No — the CSV importer creates your client records (names, contact details, and addresses). You set up the recurring subscriptions you bill each client for natively in HubWho after the import, tied to your own products and prices. The import gets the client list in fast so you're not hand-typing it; subscriptions are configured on top of those records.
What happens if I import the same client twice?
Duplicates are caught automatically. A row whose client name already exists for your agency is skipped rather than creating a second copy, and the per-row report tells you exactly which rows were skipped and why. That means you can re-run an import or bring clients in over several waves without making a mess.