Migrate from Markate to Zoho CRM

Markate Items and Categories define the product and service catalog used in Estimates and Invoices. We export Categories first (to establish parent references), then Items with their category assignments. In Zoho, we map Categories to Product Categories and Items to Products with Standard Price Book entries. If the customer's Markate Items use custom pricing tiers, we create Zoho Price Books to preserve them. Categories must import before Items to satisfy the parent-reference constraint.

Markate Customers are the primary entity with a name, phone, email, address, and optional company link. We map these to Zoho CRM Contacts, optionally creating Accounts for customers with a company name field. The customer email becomes the Contact email field and is used as the dedupe key during Zoho import. We run a pre-flight duplicate scan against the exported CSV to identify records that already exist in the destination Zoho org before submitting.

Markate Estimates map to Zoho Quotes with line items referencing the Product records created from Items. Estimate status fields (sent, accepted, declined) map to Zoho Quote Status picklist values. If the customer uses Zoho Quotes, we configure the Quote layout before import so that the line-item import step has a target. Note that Zoho Quotes is available from Professional tier; Standard tier customers receive Estimates as read-only Zoho Notes attached to the Contact.

Markate Work Orders hold job details, assigned team members, schedule, and status. There is no native Work Order equivalent in standard Zoho CRM; we map to Tasks linked to the Contact, create a Case if the org has Service Cloud, or pre-create a custom Jobs module with custom fields (Job Status picklist, Assigned Technician lookup to User, Scheduled Date date field, Job Type text field). The customer chooses the strategy during scoping. Team member assignments map to Zoho Users by email match.

Markate Invoices with line items, payment status, and amounts map to Zoho Invoices. Line items reference the Product records created from Items. Partial payment status and payment method details migrate to Zoho Invoice fields. If the customer uses Zoho Books integration, we map to Zoho Books Invoices instead and link them via the Zoho CRM-Zoho Books connection. Invoice import happens after both Customers and Items are confirmed imported.

Markate Expenses track job-related costs with vendor, amount, and optional Work Order linkage. We map these to Zoho Tasks on the related Contact or to a custom Expenses module with fields for Vendor, Amount, Date, and Work Order reference. Receipt attachments in Markate are not exported; we document each expense record as a manual-recreate item with a checklist of files to re-upload in Zoho.

Markate Team Members are billable users assigned to Work Orders. We import Team Member records to preserve assignment history but map User IDs by email match against the destination Zoho Users table. Any Team Member without a matching Zoho User is flagged in the reconciliation report for the customer admin to provision before the Work Order import begins.

Markate does not expose custom field definitions via its CSV export. Any custom fields the customer created in Markate are not visible in the exported data and cannot be migrated programmatically. We document each observed gap during the scoping call and provide a Zoho custom field creation guide with field types, default values, and validation rules so the customer's admin can reconfigure them post-migration.

Markate's Data Migration tool does not export file attachments including photos, signed documents, and receipts. We flag all attachments as manual-migration items and provide a checklist of files organized by Customer and Work Order to re-upload in Zoho's Files tab or Zoho Docs after migration. This checklist is included in the handoff documentation.

Markate's appointment reminders, follow-up emails, and scheduling automations are platform-native features that do not export as data. Zoho has analogous automation capabilities (Workflow Rules, Blueprint, and Macros) but these require re-configuration rather than data movement. We deliver a written inventory of each Markate scheduling rule, reminder trigger, and automation with a recommended Zoho Workflow Rule equivalent for the customer's admin to rebuild post-migration.