If your exported customer list or report looks weird—like phone numbers showing as strange letters or missing digits—it’s not HirePOS messing up. It’s Excel changing the format of your data when you open the file.

The good news? The data is still correct! It just needs to be opened the right way so Excel doesn’t mess with it.

Scroll down for tips on how to view your data properly.

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files are a common and versatile way of exporting data from HirePOS. They contain plain, unformatted text where each field is separated by a comma. While this ensures maximum compatibility and accurate export of your data, some spreadsheet programs (particularly Microsoft Excel) may misinterpret the contents of the file, leading to confusing or incorrect display of your data.

When you export data—such as customer lists, items, or reports—from HirePOS, the system generates a plain CSV file that accurately reflects the data as it exists within your account.

However, when you open that file in Excel, Excel tries to be "helpful" by automatically formatting what it thinks are numbers or dates. This includes:

• Phone numbers being displayed in scientific notation (e.g. 0412345678 becomes 4.12E+09)

• ABN or account numbers being shortened or rounded

• Leading zeros being removed

• Dates being reformatted or misinterpreted

This is a function of Excel’s auto-formatting—not an issue with the data exported from HirePOS.

To see the unaltered data:

1. Right-click the downloaded file

2. Select Open with > Notepad (or TextEdit on Mac)

3. You’ll see the raw CSV contents exactly as exported—untouched, unformatted, and complete

This proves that the data was exported correctly.

Instead of double-clicking the CSV to open it:

1. Open Excel first

2. Go to File > Open and select your CSV file

3. In newer versions, use Data > Get External Data > From Text/CSV

4. In the import wizard:

   • Select Delimited and use comma as the delimiter

   • For columns like phone numbers and ABNs, set the column format to Text

This stops Excel from "guessing" the format and changing your data.

Google Sheets is less aggressive with auto-formatting and will preserve leading zeros and number formatting more reliably:

1. Open Google Sheets

2. Create a new sheet

3. Go to File > Import > Upload, then upload your CSV file

4. The data will be displayed cleanly with no automatic number formatting issues

You can rename the file from .csv to .txt before opening it with Excel. This will force Excel to walk you through the import wizard where you can define formats yourself.

• HirePOS exports correct, untouched data.

• Any strange formatting (e.g. weird numbers or missing zeros) is caused by Excel's automatic formatting.

• Use Notepad/TextEdit to verify raw data.

• Use Excel’s import tools or Google Sheets to retain formatting.