Importing contacts

There are two ways to enter a new contact into FreeAgent. You can either import several contacts at once from your e-mail programme such as Outlook, Google Mail or Mac Mail, import them from Basecamp, or you can enter individual contacts manually one by one.

 

Here's how to upload a group of contacts from your e-mail programme.

1. Click Import Contacts

Start by clicking the Import Contacts button at the top right of the Contacts screen.

This brings up the first step of the Import process.

Click the From a File tab.

2. Export contacts from e-mail

As FreeAgent explains, you'll need to first export your contacts from your e-mail programme in the correct format. Mostly this will be vCard but there are a couple of exceptions, which you can see here. If you are using Outlook then you'll need to choose the Comma Separated Values (Windows) option. 

I've exported my contacts from Google Apps, using the vCard format.

3. Browse to the file of contacts you've exported

So in FreeAgent, on the Import Contacts page, I'll click Browse at step 2 and pull up the file that I have just exported from Google Apps and saved.

Then I'll click Next.

4. Choose contacts from the list

FreeAgent then gives me the option to choose which contacts I want to import. I'll tick the ones I want to import and then click Import selected contacts - or, if I want to import all of them, I'll click Import all contacts.

You can then filter between contacts you've imported and those you chose not to import, or see contacts with errors.

That's saved a lot of time entering those contacts individually.

Help!  I've imported the wrong contacts.

If you discover you've imported the wrong contacts, you can undo that by clicking Import Contacts and clicking the Undo button next to the file containing the contacts you want to remove.

FreeAgent won't remove contacts that you've already worked with by posting projects, invoices or estimates against them.