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Initial data imports and migration

Two lists can be brought over from your old system today: vendors and inventory. The BayEngine team loads both from CSV, working with you directly; there is no import screen in the app. Nothing else migrates yet. Customers, vehicles, service history, and open balances stay in the old system, and the second half of this page covers how shops run without them.

If you're mid-onboarding, this expands on the import note in New-shop onboarding. To start an import, use the support channel described in Getting support and reviewing updates.

What support can import​

Vendors. Each row becomes a Vendor: name, phone, website, account number, your account rep's name, phone, and email, payment terms, tax ID, and notes. The vendor name is the only required field.

Inventory. An inventory import can carry three things at once, and a row can use any combination:

  • Parts: name, part number, brand, description, part type, unit of measure, retail price, core charge, minimum and maximum stock levels, preferred vendor, and notes. Only the name is required for a new part.
  • Inventory locations: shelf, cabinet, or bin names. Rows that name no location go to the shop's default location.
  • Opening stock: quantity on hand per part and location, with the unit cost you paid. Cost is required with any nonzero quantity, so your inventory value is right from the first day.

Import your vendors first if the inventory file references them, so parts can link to a preferred vendor by account number.

How an import runs​

  1. Export vendors and inventory from your old system in whatever format it produces. CSV is ideal; a spreadsheet works too. Don't reformat or rename columns to guess at what we need — send what the system gives you and we map the columns with you.
  2. Send the files through your support contact.
  3. We run a dry run first. Every row is checked and problems come back with row numbers, so you can fix the source file and try again. Nothing is written until the whole file passes: if any row fails, no rows load.
  4. Once the dry run is clean, we run it for real and you spot-check the results in Vendors and Inventory.

Re-running a file is safe. Rows are matched to existing records (vendors by account number or name, parts by part number and brand), so a second pass updates what's there instead of creating duplicates.

One timing rule matters: an opening quantity can only be loaded for a part and location that have no stock activity yet in BayEngine. Import your counts before you start receiving or adjusting that part. If you begin purchasing in BayEngine first, the import can still create the parts and vendors, but the quantities will need manual adjustments instead.

Check your data soon after the import, while the old system is still open in the next tab. A wrong cost or a part filed under the wrong bin is a two-minute fix now and a confusing count later.

What doesn't migrate yet​

There is no import for customers, vehicles, service history, closed invoices, appointments, canned services, or outstanding customer balances. That includes bulk customer lists: even a clean CSV of names and phone numbers can't be loaded today.

Settings aren't imported either. Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes are entered by hand in Configuration; see Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes. For most shops that's a dozen numbers, faster to type than to convert.

Running your shop without migrated history​

Shops that switch to BayEngine do it with a cutover date, not a data conversion. The pattern that works:

  1. Pick a cutover date. Finish or close out in-progress tickets in the old system; write everything that starts after the date in BayEngine.
  2. Keep the old system readable. A read-only login, an export of invoices to PDF, or even the old machine in the back office all work. When a returning vehicle needs a warranty check or a "what did we do last time," you look it up there. Confirm what your old vendor's contract allows before you cancel; some systems cut off access entirely at cancellation.
  3. Collect outstanding balances where the invoice lives. Money owed on old invoices is settled in the old system; BayEngine has no record of the debt.
  4. Continue your document numbers. Configurations > Operations > Customer documents sets the starting number for estimate, repair order, counter sale, and purchase order sequences. Set it before your first repair order and your RO numbers pick up where the old ones left off, which keeps phone conversations about "RO 48213" unambiguous during the transition.

Your customer list rebuilds itself through normal work. Customers and vehicles are created as people book, call, and check in, so after a few months the regulars are all in BayEngine with fresh, verified contact information. Canned services are rebuilt by hand too; the onboarding guide's advice to start with your ten most common jobs applies here.

Import templates​

The exact accepted column names for the vendor and inventory files will be published as the Import templates reference in the Reference and Updates section of this knowledge base. Until that page exists, you don't need them: support maps your columns during the import, whatever your old system calls them.