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Status New
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Created by Guest
Created on Sep 2, 2021

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Exporting Numeric Fields

When exporting numeric fields which have a meaningful leading zero, such as a bank account number or sort code, it would be useful if these could be exported as strings, i.e. by enclosing the field in the csv row within quotation marks.This would overcome the problem where if the csv file is opened directly in Excel the bank account field is treated as numeric and Excel removes the leading zero and thus makes the value of the bank account number field incorrect. We realise that it is possible to use Excel's import function to do a more controlled transformation of the data and ensure that the field is treated as string, but users tend to open the csv file directly into Excel which causes leading zeroes to be removed.

  • ADMIN RESPONSE
    Sep 13, 2021

    Hi Hayley. Thanks for the suggestion. It sounds like we should perhaps give any user the option to choose whether to export using quotation marks - that way those that want to can etc. I'll raise this up for review.
    Cheers
    Dylan

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  • Admin
    Samuel Breeze
    Apr 30, 2026

    Hey there! 👋

    Thanks so much for taking the time to share this with us – we really appreciate you explaining the issue in detail.

    We totally get the frustration here. It's one of those classic CSV quirks where Excel tries to be helpful by auto-formatting numbers, but ends up removing those crucial leading zeros from sort codes and account numbers. Not ideal when you're trying to pay people! 😅

    You're absolutely right that the Excel import wizard can handle this properly, but we know that's an extra step most people skip when they just want to quickly open a file.

    We're going to look into ways we could format these fields differently in our CSV exports – wrapping numeric values like sort codes and account numbers in quotes so they're treated as text is definitely one option we're exploring.

    In the meantime, if you need a workaround, you could:

    • Use the Excel import wizard (we know, not ideal!)

    • Open the CSV in Google Sheets, which tends to preserve leading zeros better

    • Use a text editor to check the raw data before importing

    We'll keep you posted on any updates here. Thanks again for flagging this – feedback like yours helps us make Staffology work better for everyone! 🙌

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