Moving your jobs from Smartsheet or Excel

By Randall Strickland · Updated September 24, 2026 · 3 min read

Most contractors start with a spreadsheet: a Smartsheet for jobs, an Excel file of bids, a customer list in QuickBooks. Moving to a job costing app shouldn’t mean retyping all of it. Here’s how to bring it over, and what’s worth cleaning up before you do.

Step 1: Export your sheet

• Smartsheet: open the sheet, then File → Export → Export to Microsoft Excel. Excel keeps dates and dollar amounts intact, which is better than copying and pasting.
• Excel: use the file as it is (.xlsx), or save it as CSV.
• Google Sheets: File → Download → Microsoft Excel or CSV.
• QuickBooks: run the customer list or other report you want and export it to Excel. Report titles at the top are fine; JobMargin finds the real header row.

Step 2: Tidy it up (five minutes well spent)

• One header row with a name for every column, like “Project Name,” “Customer,” “Contract Value.”
• One row per record: one job, one bid, one customer, or one crew member per row. Section headings or subtotal rows in the middle can confuse any import. Total rows are skipped automatically.
• Dollar amounts in their own column. “$48,000” and “48000” both work. “48k plus tax” doesn’t.
• Real dates in date columns. Formats like 9/15/2026 or 2026-09-15 are fine.
• Separate files or tabs for jobs, bids, customers, and crew. You import each kind on its own. If a workbook has several tabs, JobMargin starts on the biggest one and lets you switch.

Step 3: Import it

In JobMargin, the company owner opens Settings → Bring your data in → Import from a spreadsheet, picks what’s being imported (jobs, bids, customers, or crew), and uploads the file. You can also paste rows copied straight from a spreadsheet, header row included.

There’s no size limit to worry about. The file is read right on your phone or computer, so a sheet with a few thousand rows comes in whole.

Step 4: Check the column matches

Every spreadsheet names its columns differently. JobMargin matches yours to its own fields (job name, customer, contract amount, start date, status, and so on) and shows an example value from each column so you can see it’s right. If a match is wrong, change it in the dropdown. If a field isn’t in your sheet, leave it set to “not in my sheet.”

Status words are translated too. “In Progress” becomes an active job and “Closed” a completed one. On bids, “Awarded” becomes won, “Pending” becomes sent, and “Lost” stays lost.

Step 5: Import and review

The preview shows what’s about to come in and how many rows are already in JobMargin. Those are skipped, so importing the same sheet twice won’t create duplicates. Tap Import, then open a few jobs to spot-check them.

After you import

• Add budgets to your active jobs, by cost category, so you can see budget vs. actual. See job costing for contractors.
• Invite your crew with your company’s join code so their hours land on the right job.
• Keep the old sheet as a read-only archive for a while. There’s no rush to delete anything.

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