diff --git a/home/import_assessments.py b/home/import_assessments.py
index 4c986e45..aa97ad6c 100644
--- a/home/import_assessments.py
+++ b/home/import_assessments.py
@@ -12,7 +12,14 @@
 from wagtail.coreutils import get_content_languages  # type: ignore
 from wagtail.models import Locale, Page  # type: ignore
 
-from home.import_helpers import ImportException, parse_file, validate_using_form
+from home.import_helpers import (
+    ImportException,
+    convert_headers_to_snake_case,
+    validate_using_form,
+)
+from home.import_helpers import (
+    parse_file as helper_parse_file,
+)
 from home.models import Assessment, ContentPage, HomePage  # type: ignore
 
 AssessmentId = tuple[str, Locale]
@@ -106,21 +113,13 @@ def parse_file(self) -> list["AssessmentRow"]:
             c. Validates that the snake_case headers contain all mandatory headers.
             d. Transforms each row to use snake_case headers.
         """
-
-        row_iterator = parse_file(self.file_content, self.file_type)
+        row_iterator = helper_parse_file(self.file_content, self.file_type)
         rows = [row for _, row in row_iterator]
 
-        if not rows:
-            raise ImportAssessmentException(
-                "The import file is empty or contains no valid rows.", row_num=1
-            )
-
         original_headers = rows[0].keys()
-        headers_mapping = {
-            header: self.to_snake_case(header) for header in original_headers
-        }
+        headers_mapping = convert_headers_to_snake_case(list(original_headers))
         snake_case_headers = list(headers_mapping.values())
-        self.validate_headers(snake_case_headers, MANDATORY_HEADERS, row_num=1)
+        self.validate_headers(snake_case_headers, row_num=1)
         transformed_rows = [
             {headers_mapping[key]: value for key, value in row.items()} for row in rows
         ]
@@ -214,9 +213,7 @@ def create_shadow_assessment_from_row(
         )
         assessment.questions.append(question)
 
-    def validate_headers(
-        self, headers: list[str], MANDATORY_HEADERS: list[str], row_num: int
-    ) -> None:
+    def validate_headers(self, headers: list[str], row_num: int) -> None:
         missing_headers = [
             header for header in MANDATORY_HEADERS if header not in headers
         ]
diff --git a/home/import_helpers.py b/home/import_helpers.py
index f499baf9..f90b3ce7 100644
--- a/home/import_helpers.py
+++ b/home/import_helpers.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 # The error messages are processed and parsed into a list of messages we return to the user
 import csv
+import re
 from collections.abc import Iterator
 from datetime import datetime
 from io import BytesIO, StringIO
@@ -165,6 +166,30 @@ def extract_errors(data: dict[str | int, Any] | list[str]) -> dict[str, str]:
     return error_message
 
 
+def check_empty_rows(rows: list[dict[str, Any]], row_num: int) -> None:
+    """
+    Checks if the list of rows is empty and raises an exception if true.
+    """
+    if not rows:
+        raise ImportException(
+            "The import file is empty or contains no valid rows.", row_num=row_num
+        )
+
+
+def convert_headers_to_snake_case(headers: list[str]) -> dict[str, str]:
+    """
+    Converts a list of headers to snake_case and returns a mapping.
+    """
+    return {header: to_snake_case(header) for header in headers}
+
+
+def to_snake_case(s: str) -> str:
+    """
+    Converts string to snake_case.
+    """
+    return re.sub(r"[\W_]+", "_", s).lower().strip("_")
+
+
 def fix_rows(rows: Iterator[dict[str | Any, Any]]) -> Iterator[dict[str, str | None]]:
     """
     Fix keys for all rows by lowercasing keys and removing whitespace from keys and values
@@ -210,7 +235,11 @@ def parse_file(
     file_content: bytes, file_type: str
 ) -> Iterator[tuple[int, dict[str, Any]]]:
     read_rows = read_xlsx if file_type == "XLSX" else read_csv
-    return enumerate(fix_rows(read_rows(file_content)), start=2)
+    rows = list(fix_rows(read_rows(file_content)))
+
+    check_empty_rows(rows, row_num=1)
+
+    return enumerate(rows, start=2)
 
 
 def read_csv(file_content: bytes) -> Iterator[dict[str, Any]]:
diff --git a/home/tests/test_assessment_import_export.py b/home/tests/test_assessment_import_export.py
index ddc441d5..4c7568e4 100644
--- a/home/tests/test_assessment_import_export.py
+++ b/home/tests/test_assessment_import_export.py
@@ -706,9 +706,11 @@ def test_empty_rows(self, csv_impexp: ImportExport) -> None:
         Importing an empty CSV should return an error that the
         import file has no rows.
         """
-        with pytest.raises(ImportAssessmentException) as e:
+        with pytest.raises(ImportException) as e:
             csv_impexp.import_file("empty.csv")
-        assert e.value.message == "The import file is empty or contains no valid rows."
+        assert e.value.message == [
+            "The import file is empty or contains no valid rows."
+        ]
         assert e.value.row_num == 1