Guides
Moving from Excel to a CRM: when to leave and how to bring the file over
You leave Excel when the file can no longer tell you who spoke to whom, never because it got too big: one sheet holds 1,048,576 rows. The move runs tab by tab, companies first, then contacts, then deals. Kasar takes each tab as a CSV or Excel file and maps the columns to its fields, and you keep Excel for your analysis.
Facts checked on November 7, 2026
01Volume is never the real limit
According to Microsoft's limits page, checked on November 7, 2026, an Excel sheet holds 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. No sales team gets there. What wears a tracking file down lies elsewhere: it stores what someone remembered to type, and it knows nothing about what happens in the inbox, on LinkedIn or on the phone.
Working together has its own conditions. Co-authoring takes a Microsoft 365 subscription and a file sitting on OneDrive or SharePoint Online. When two people change the same cell, Microsoft says the last saved change wins. The older shared workbook feature, which Microsoft says co-authoring has replaced, does not let you create or insert Excel tables, and those often carry the filters of a sales tracker.
02Six signs the file has run its course
Two versions are circulating
- What happens in the workbook
- One copy goes out by email, another lives on a laptop, and nobody knows which one counts
- What a CRM changes
- One database for the whole team, with rights set by role
The last exchange cannot be found
- What happens in the workbook
- The email, the call and the LinkedIn message each stay in their own tool
- What a CRM changes
- Exchanges land on the contact record, and the company record gathers them
Follow-ups slip through
- What happens in the workbook
- A “follow up on” column reminds nobody
- What a CRM changes
- Tasks and reminders in each person’s name; a sequence stops as soon as the prospect replies
One company sits on three rows
- What happens in the workbook
- The address gets copied, then the copies drift apart
- What a CRM changes
- One company, several contacts, several deals, all linked
A salesperson leaves
- What happens in the workbook
- Their file and their memory of the accounts go too
- What a CRM changes
- Recorded exchanges stay on the records
The forecast takes half a day
- What happens in the workbook
- It gets rebuilt by hand before every meeting
- What a CRM changes
- The pipeline reads stage by stage, and its numbers come from a dashboard
Two of these signs are enough, from two or three sellers up. One person with a few hundred companies can stay on our Excel CRM template, whose columns are already the ones Kasar uses: on moving day, the import recognizes them.
03Preparing the workbook before you import
- 1
Freeze a dated copy
Keep the original file untouched. You will compare its rows with the import report, and come back to it if a column was misread.
- 2
Separate what is different
One tab for companies, one for people, one for deals. A row describing a company and its contact can also work: the import sends each column to the right record.
- 3
Clean the columns that matter
International phone numbers, one date format, emails with no stray spaces. The free preparation tool does this in your browser, with no file sent anywhere.
- 4
Strip the decoration
Totals, subtitles, blank rows and margin comments would read as records. One header row, then one row per record.
- 5
Save one file per tab
Kasar reads one tab per file, the one with the most cells. With Save As and the CSV format, Excel saves only the active sheet: repeat for each tab.
04Bringing the file into Kasar
The import takes CSV, XLSX and XLS on every plan: 150 MB per file, 10 files per pass. Start with companies, because a contact points to them, then contacts, because a deal points to them. The mapping is proposed from the headers and values. Leo can also read the file and propose the full plan.
Full name
- What you do with it at import
- Split into first and last name, with the separator you choose
Company, on the contact row
- What you do with it at import
- Relation: the contact attaches to its company record
Status, Industry, Source
- What you do with it at import
- An existing field, or a new field created during the import
Email, Phone, LinkedIn profile
- What you do with it at import
- The identity key: this is what spots duplicates
Amount and Stage
- What you do with it at import
- The opportunity fields; the stage takes its label
Working column with no lasting value
- What you do with it at import
- Ignore: it will not be imported
Before you start, the review screen shows a preview, the errors and the duplicates. Choose to skip duplicates or update existing records. The report then details what was created, updated or left out, and why. Contacts living elsewhere too? Your Google contacts and your LinkedIn connections follow the same path.
05What Excel keeps once the CRM is live
Excel stays excellent for anything calculated once: a pricing scenario, a margin analysis, a table for the board. From Kasar, the current view of an object, with its filters and sort order, exports to CSV or Excel. What changes is the direction of travel: the file becomes a snapshot taken from the database, and nobody updates it any more.
So set a cutover date, and make the workbook read only that day. A file that stays editable keeps receiving entries, and within weeks the team has two versions of the truth. A team raising money or running a deal flow follows the same logic: CRM for a VC firm details the model specific to that job.
On cutover day
- A dated copy of the workbook is archived.
- Each tab has its own file, with a single header row.
- The import report matches the row count of each tab.
- The workbook goes read only, and the team knows where to type.
- Keeping both tools editable “to see how it goes”.
Frequently asked questions
Row count does not decide it: a sheet holds over a million. The real threshold is human. Once two or three people sell at the same time, the file stops saying who wrote to whom, and follow-ups depend on everyone’s memory.
Yes, but Kasar reads only one tab per file, the one with the most cells. To bring over three tabs, save them as three files and drop them together, up to 10 files per pass.
No. A formula arrives as its result, and formatting disappears. A computed column in Kasar can take over the calculation, and a color that carried meaning becomes a field value, written into a column before the import.
Download the sheet as CSV or Excel from the File menu, then drop that file into the Kasar import. The rest is identical: one file per tab, the mapping, the review and the report.
Your data stays exportable at any time: the current view to CSV or Excel, a whole object to CSV from the export settings, with the columns you choose. Import and export are open on every plan.
Sources
Every fact on this page can be checked on the official page below, read on the date shown.
- Microsoft, Excel specifications and limits · read on November 7, 2026
- Microsoft, collaborate on Excel workbooks at the same time with co-authoring · read on November 7, 2026
- Microsoft, about the shared workbook feature · read on November 7, 2026
- Microsoft, save a workbook to text format (.txt or .csv) · read on November 7, 2026