Enable leading zeros to appear in reports

GiveCampus CSV reports preserve leading zeros in values such as constituent identifiers. Excel can remove them when it interprets identifiers as numbers. Import the identifier column as text to preserve the original value.'constituent_identifier'. However, some software, like Excel, remove leading zeros, which can create hassle for gift entry

Preserve leading zeros when opening a CSV

1. Download the original CSV report from GiveCampus.
2. In Excel, import the CSV using Data → From Text/CSV rather than opening it by double-clicking.
3. In the import or transformation options, set identifier columns to Text before loading the data. If Excel automatically added a step that converted the column to numbers, remove or change that step so leading zeros are retained.
4. Load the data and compare a few identifiers with the original CSV.

If Excel has already removed zeros, re-import the original CSV. Changing a cell’s format to Text afterward will not recover lost digits.

Optional: display a known fixed-width identifier

A custom numeric display such as 00000 only pads values to a chosen five-character width. Use it only if you already know that every identifier must have that width; it does not recover the original number of zeros. If Excel has already converted IDs to numbers, re-import the original CSV as text.

• Highlight the column
• Click Home
• Click the dropdown under Number
• Select Custom

• Select Custom again and enter 00000 in the bar where it says "type"
• Click OK