Moving from your shop system

Moving from Mitchell 1

Save your customers and vehicles out as a file, and the columns are matched the way Mitchell 1 files name them.

You keep Mitchell 1. Treadstock stores tires and nothing else — it is not a shop management system. Your customer list comes over once, as a file you save out yourself, and then you carry on running the shop where you run it now.

Getting the file out of Mitchell 1

The first one is the only one worth hunting for.

  1. Find the customer export or reportEvery shop system can write its customer list out to a file — it is how shops move to a new accountant, a new phone system or a new owner. Look for an export, a download, or a customers report with a save or download button on it. If you cannot find it, your system’s support line will know the name of it, and asking for “a customer and vehicle export as a spreadsheet” gets you the right thing.
  2. Customers and their vehiclesThe files we have seen carry first and last name in separate columns, the car as a year, a make and a model, and the plate under a heading that reads just License. All of those are matched.
  3. Open the file once before you send itOne row per customer, with the headings across the top. If a name, a phone number or a car is missing from the file, it will be missing here too — the export is the limit, not us. Opening it in Excel and saving it again is fine.

We do not say which menu it is under, because we do not run Mitchell 1 and a guessed menu name sends you hunting for something that is not there. What we can tell you is what to ask for.

The columns matched for you

These are the headings our screen recognises from the Mitchell 1 files it has read.

  • First Name and Last Name
  • Phone 1 (or Phone, or Home Phone)
  • Email Address
  • Vehicle Year, Vehicle Make and Vehicle Model
  • License
  • VIN
  • Notes

It is a head start, not a rule. Every match is shown on screen with a real value out of your own file beside it, so a wrong guess is obvious, and you can change any of it before one customer is written. A column your file does not have is simply left alone.

What to check once it has run

  • The count. The screen says how many customers it added and how many it filled in. If that is far off what you expected, the export was partial — run it again asking for all customers.
  • One customer you know well. Open them and check the phone number and the car. If a column went to the wrong place it is obvious on the first person you look at.
  • Nobody is in twice. Somebody already here gets their blanks filled in and any missing car added, rather than a second copy. Running the same file twice changes nothing the second time.
  • Your tires are the other job. A customer list does not say what is on your rack. Walk the racks logging what is where, or paste a list you already keep.

Questions about moving from Mitchell 1

Does this connect to Mitchell 1?

No. You save a file out of your own system and bring the file here, the same way you would open it in Excel. There is nothing to authorise and nobody to ask.

My plate column is just called License.

That is matched. So are License Plate and Plate.

Can I bring the tires in too?

Not from a customer list — it does not say what is on your rack. There is a second screen for the rack: walk it logging what is where, or paste a list you already keep.

On a different system?

The four with their columns matched are a head start, not the whole list.

The import screen reads .csv, .xlsx or .xlsm out of anything that writes one, and if your system has no export at all there is a template on that screen to fill in.