'Customer Name', 'cust_name' and 'CustomerName ' are the same column to a person and three different columns to every tool that reads your file. Inconsistent headers break merges, imports and formulas that refer to columns by name.
Plumb is built on a simple idea: the data your business runs on should be trustworthy before anyone draws conclusions from it. Cleaning, checking and reshaping data should not need macros, scripts or a weekend. Plumb keeps your files private, shows every change it proposes, and lets you approve fixes instead of hunting for problems by hand.
How Plumb helps: Data transformation
Plumb's data transformation suggests a clean, consistent header for every column, applies your chosen convention (snake_case, Title Case or camelCase), strips stray spaces and symbols, and recognises synonyms so the same field gets the same name across every file.
How It Works
Pick one convention and apply it everywhere.
- Choose a convention. snake_case (customer_name) is the safest for databases and code.
- Remove stray spaces: =TRIM(A1) on the header row.
- Convert to lowercase with underscores: =SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(TRIM(A1)), " ", "_").
- Remove symbols like #, % and / that break imports, with SUBSTITUTE or Find & Replace.
- In Power Query, use Transform > Format > Lowercase on headers, or rename columns once and reuse the query.
- In Plumb: upload one or more files, pick a convention, review suggested names and synonym matches, and apply.
Where This Helps
Database imports
Make headers safe for SQL tables without manual renaming.
Recurring reports
Keep the same column names every month so formulas and dashboards keep working.
Cross-team files
Map each team's headers to one shared vocabulary.
Try Plumb in early access
Plumb is in early access. Join the waitlist on tryplumb.pro to get an invite. Early access covers Excel (.xlsx), CSV and JSON files, and we are adding more sources as people ask for them. Your files are processed privately and are never used to train models.
Name it once, name it right
Now you have a repeatable way to do it, by hand or with Plumb. Join the waitlist and tell us what your data looks like; we read every reply.
Join the waitlist