Setting Your Workspace Country and Locale

Your workspace's country tells ContactDrive how your team writes dates, which currency your own amounts are in, how a new address should be laid out, and how to read a phone number someone types without a country code. Set it once and everyone in the workspace sees things the local way.

Right now you can choose United States or Australia. Every existing workspace starts out as United States, so nothing changes until an admin changes it.

Setting the country and locale

You need admin access to change this, because it applies to everyone in the workspace.

1. Click Settings in the left sidebar. You'll land on Details.
2. Scroll to the Country and locale card, just below Timezone.
3. Pick your Country. The Locale switches to that country's default on its own: en-US for the United States, en-AU for Australia.
4. Read the line under the two selects. It previews what the choice means: how dates will show, the distance unit, and the currency your workspace amounts are in. It also reminds you that your ContactDrive subscription is always billed in USD.
5. Click Save country and locale. You'll see Updates saved.

What changes when you switch to Australia

• Dates show day first, as dd/MM/yyyy, so Christmas Day reads 25/12/2026. Date pickers accept dates typed day first too.
• Your workspace's own amounts show in AUD. That covers currency custom fields, amounts in the Donations app, and currency metrics on your dashboards.

A few things deliberately stay as they were:

• Plans, billing and credits stay in USD. Your ContactDrive subscription is billed in US dollars whatever country your workspace is set to.
• CSV exports and emails keep US date formatting, month first. See the FAQ below.

Addresses in any country

Every address on a contact now has its own Country, picked from a searchable list with the United States and Australia at the top and every other country below. A new address starts out in your workspace's country, so most of the time you won't need to touch it.

The rest of the address follows the country you pick:

• United States addresses use City, State, ZIP and County, as before.
• Australian addresses use Suburb, State or territory and Postcode. State or territory is a dropdown (ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC, WA), and County is hidden.
• Any other country gets City or locality, State, province or region (typed freely, since we don't keep a list for every country) and Postal code.

On the contact record, each address is laid out the way that country writes it. A country line appears only when the address is in a different country from your workspace, so an Australian workspace's Australian addresses stay uncluttered and the occasional overseas one is easy to spot.

If you want to see countries at a glance, add the optional Country column to your contacts grid.

Grids, filters and the import mapper

Column headers follow your workspace's country too. In an Australian workspace, the address columns in the Contacts, Activity, Donations and Lists grids read Suburb, State or territory, Postcode and Local government area instead of City, State, Zip Code and County. On the Contacts grid, the State and Location filters offer Australian states and territories instead of US states.

When you import a CSV, the field mapper uses the same labels, so you map your file's Suburb column to Suburb. Saved import mappings keep working.

This only changes the labels. Your saved views, grid layouts and dashboards keep showing exactly the same contacts as before. A United States workspace, or one with no country set, looks the same as always.

Importing a file of Australian or international addresses? Import Tips covers the column headers ContactDrive recognizes and what happens to an address with no country.

Phone numbers

ContactDrive reads every phone number in the context of your workspace's country. In an Australian workspace, typing 0412 345 678 saves an Australian mobile number. A number typed with a leading + and a country code is read as that country's number instead, so a US number entered as +1 followed by the number stays a US number in an Australian workspace.

• Display. A number from your own country shows the local way, the way you'd dial it at home. A number from anywhere else shows in international format with its country code.
• Numbers that don't look valid are still saved exactly as entered. ContactDrive won't throw away a number just because it can't make sense of it.
• Duplicates. Duplicate detection and Merge duplicates recognize the same number written different ways, so 0412 345 678 and +61 412 345 678 count as one number.
• Searching and filtering. Phone column filters accept the local way of writing a number: in an Australian workspace, a filter for numbers that start with 0412 works. Quick search also finds a contact by their local number.
• Text messages. When Connect or Dispatch sends an SMS, it uses a mobile number first and skips any number it has detected as a landline or a toll-free number, since those can't receive texts.

Numbers already in your workspace aren't rewritten in bulk. Each contact's numbers are tidied the next time that contact is saved, merged or re-imported. Until then they may keep their old look, but they still match in searches, filters and duplicate checks.

FAQ

Why is my bill still in USD?

Because your ContactDrive subscription is always priced and billed in US dollars. The country setting changes how your own data is shown, such as currency custom fields, Donations amounts and dashboard metrics, but plans, billing and credits stay in USD. The preview line on the Country and locale card says so too. See Workspace Settings Overview for where billing lives.

My existing numbers still show the old format

That's expected. ContactDrive doesn't rewrite every number at once; a contact's numbers are updated the next time that contact is saved, merged or re-imported. Opening the contact and saving it is enough. In the meantime the old numbers still turn up in searches, filters and duplicate checks.

Dates in my CSV export are still month-first

CSV exports, and the emails ContactDrive sends, keep US date formatting whatever your workspace's locale is, so a file looks the same no matter who exported it. If you're opening the file in a spreadsheet set up for day-first dates, check that the dates came through the way you expect. Exporting Contacts covers the export itself, including the country column that comes with the Zip column.

I changed the country but some dates still look the same

Make sure you clicked Save country and locale; changing the selects alone saves nothing. Also remember that CSV exports and emails keep US date formatting by design.