The short answer
A useful estimate tracker records the homeowner, contact details, estimate date and amount, current status, channel permission, and next owner action. Keep one clearly identified record per estimate and preserve contact history. A phone number or email address alone does not establish permission to send follow-ups.
Start with the fields that change the next action
Use the downloadable Fencepost CSV as an import starting point, not as a complete job-management system. Review its actual column names before replacing them. Keep the original export available so you can trace any correction.
The workspace importer keeps imported records review-only and does not grant contact permission from a file, even if permission columns are present. Verify consent separately. For day-to-day tracking, retain an estimate identifier and version in your own records; two quotes may be revisions rather than separate opportunities.
- Customer name, email, and phone where available.
- Estimate date, amount, and current status.
- Separate email and SMS permission records.
- Last contact, next action, and responsible owner in your working tracker.
Clean the file before any outreach
Check dates, currency formats, duplicate rows, and blank contacts. Compare the imported total and record count with the source file; a successful upload is not proof that each field mapped correctly.
Remove records that are accepted, declined, opted out, or otherwise paused from active follow-up. Keep suppression history rather than deleting the evidence that prevents a future resend. Do not include payment details or unnecessary sensitive information.
Review a sample before approving messages
Inspect a few records with different statuses and contact methods. Confirm that names, scope references, and channel permissions appear as expected in the proposed message.
Only approve a sequence after checking its audience and stop rules. This guide describes a review workflow; importing a spreadsheet does not itself send messages or prove that live messaging is configured.
A practical example
A duplicate worth resolving
The same homeowner appears twice: once with the original privacy-fence quote and once with a revised gate layout. Preserve the revision history, choose the current estimate, and prevent two parallel follow-up sequences.
Illustrative data-cleaning example. The CSV download is a starter file; additional working-tracker fields are not a claim about supported import columns.