Data migration
Lendbox has no live connector to another loan system. What it has is an importer for borrowers, an importer for loans and a bulk upload for repayments, all driven by Excel. Almost every loan system can export to a spreadsheet, so the same five stages move a book across from Excel, Loandisk, Musoni, Mambu, Mifos X or Loan Performer.
Work through them in this order. Each stage relies on the one before it, and nothing posts to your books until you confirm it.
Open Borrower Management → Borrowers → Bulk Import Borrowers and download the Excel template. Fill in one row per borrower. Only First Name and Identification Number are required, and every identification number must be unique, because the loan import finds each borrower by it. Upload the file, fix any row the preview flags, and import. Borrowers go into the branch you have selected, so import one branch at a time.
Open Loan Management → Loans → Bulk Import Loans. The page takes you through six steps: the fees to apply, the late-repayment penalty, the posting accounts, the template, the data and the upload. Give each loan its real release date, principal, duration, interest method and rate, and its current status. The preview calculates each loan’s repayment schedule, so you can open one and compare it with the old system before you import.
The loan import asks for fees, penalty and posting accounts before it hands you the template.
A loan imports as if nothing has been paid on it. Bring its past repayments in through Loan Management → Bulk Repayments → Import a spreadsheet, one row per repayment with the loan number, the amount and the date it was actually collected. Lendbox checks every row, skips likely duplicates unless you choose to keep them, and posts the batch once it is approved in the Approval Center. Balances, arrears and the schedule then follow from the real payment history.
The repayment sheet is checked row by row; likely duplicates are skipped unless you keep them.
In Accounting → Chart of Accounts, give each ledger account its opening balance and the date it applies from, taken from your last trial balance. From then on the ledger posts itself from loan activity.
Before you retire the old system, compare totals branch by branch: borrowers, loans by status, principal released, outstanding balance and arrears. Run one repayment cycle in both systems, and switch once they agree.
Between stages 2 and 3, use Export Loans on the Loans list. An Excel sheet of the branch’s loans arrives by email, and you match each old loan to its new Lendbox loan number before you build the repayment sheet.
Headings must match the template exactly, and the importer reads the first sheet. Dates are written DD-MM-YYYY and phone numbers carry the country code.
| Column | Required | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| First Name | Yes | Free text |
| Last Name | No | Free text |
| Identification Type | No | National ID, Passport or Driver License |
| Identification Number | Yes | Unique per borrower; the loan import matches on it |
| Gender | No | Male, Female, M or F |
| Date of Birth | No | DD-MM-YYYY |
| Marital Status | No | Single, Married, Divorced, Widowed or Separated |
| Occupation | No | Employed, Self Employed, Student or Unemployed |
| Employer, Employee Number, Tax Identification Number | No | Free text |
| Primary Phone Number, Secondary Phone Number | No | With the country code, such as +260 |
| Email, Address, City, State, Zipcode | No | Free text |
| Next of Kin columns | No | First and last name, relationship, email, two phone numbers, address, city, state, zipcode, occupation and employer for one next of kin |
The borrower must exist before their loan does: each loan is matched to its borrower by identification number.
| Column | Required | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Borrower Identification Number | Yes | Must match a borrower already imported |
| Status | Yes | Requested, Processing, Active, Defaulted or Denied |
| Principal | Yes | The amount released |
| Release Date | Yes | DD-MM-YYYY, the day the loan was actually disbursed |
| Duration | Yes | A number and a unit, such as 12 Months |
| Interest Method | Yes | Flat, or the amortised (reducing-balance) option, spelled as in the template |
| Interest Rate | Yes | The rate per interest cycle |
| Interest Cycle | Yes | Once, Per Day, Per Week, Per Month or Per Year |
| Repayment Type | Yes | Standard or Interest Only Balloon |
| Repayment Cycle | Yes | Once, Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annual or Yearly |
| Staff Member Email | No | The officer the loan belongs to |
| Product Name | No | Links the loan to one of your Lendbox loan products |
| Collateral Name, Description, Defects, Valuation | No | One item of collateral per loan |
There is no column for an amount already paid or for an outstanding balance. The balance comes from the repayments you post at stage 3, so it is the result of real payments rather than a typed figure.
Every row is checked before import, and each loan’s schedule can be opened from the preview.
One .xlsx file of up to 1,000 rows, with the headings in row 1. Extra columns are ignored and column order does not matter, so a payroll or bank export can often go in as it is.
| Column | Required | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Loan Number | Yes | The Lendbox loan number, from the Loans list after import |
| Amount | Yes | The amount collected; currency symbols are allowed |
| Collection Date | No | The day the money was received; left blank, it means today |
| Description | No | Shown on the repayment |
Group loans cannot be posted through the bulk upload yet, so record a group loan’s history on the loan itself.
The five stages are the same wherever you are coming from. What changes is where the data comes out and how its columns map onto the Lendbox templates.
A spreadsheet book is usually the quickest move, because the data is already in the shape the importers read.
Most lenders on Loandisk start from its borrower and loan lists exported to spreadsheets. Save any CSV export as .xlsx before you copy columns across.
Start from Musoni’s client and loan reports exported to Excel, and work branch by branch.
Mambu keeps clients, loan accounts and transactions apart, which lines up with the three Lendbox files.
Mifos X books come across from its client, loan and transaction listings, exported from its reports or run against its database by whoever hosts it.
Loan Performer usually runs on a local database, so the data comes out through its reports exported to Excel, or through an export your IT support runs.
Loandisk, Musoni, Mambu, Mifos X and Loan Performer are trademarks of their owners. Lendbox is not affiliated with any of them and has no direct connection to their systems.
Plan for these before the cut-over date, because the importers will not bring them.
Pick a cut-over date at the end of a repayment cycle, when the fewest instalments are in flight. Import borrowers and loans a few days before it, check them, and post the repayment history up to that date. From the cut-over date on, record new repayments only in Lendbox.
Keep the old system read-only for at least one full cycle. If a borrower disputes a balance, you have both records to compare, and your auditors can follow the totals from one system to the other.
Start a trial, download the templates and import one branch’s borrowers before you commit the whole book.
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