Importing contributions
As with other areas of CiviCRM, you can import contribution data to the system directly through the interface. Access this tool through Contributions | Import Contributions from the main menu. We won't take the time to walk through the process in detail, as it closely follows the steps outlined in Chapter 5, Collecting, Organizing, and Importing Data, where we imported contacts. However, there are a few nuances when importing contributions that you should understand:
The import mode allows two options: Insert new contributions or Update existing contributions. These are mutually exclusive—if you are inserting, all records will be new; if you are updating, you must include a contribution ID column in your CSV file that matches existing records in the system. The update option will not simply create new records if no match is found.
If inserting new records, you should have sufficient contact data in your import file to ensure that the contacts match and merge with existing...
