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Import products from a spreadsheet
Bring a whole catalogue in at once, from the sheet you already keep.
The template
Products → Import → Download template gives you a CSV with the columns goshelf understands. Only Name and Price are required. Everything else is optional and can be filled in later.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Name | The product name as it should appear on the till and the receipt. |
| Group / Variant | For a product that comes in sizes or colours: put the same Group on each row and the Variant (Red, 1 litre, XL) in the next column. One Group becomes one product with several variants. |
| SKU | Your own code. Leave it blank and goshelf makes one. |
| Barcode | The number under the barcode. Scanning finds the product by this. |
| Category | Any text. New categories are created as they appear. |
| Unit | Piece, kg, litre, box… Matched by name; new units are created. |
| Cost | What you paid per unit. Sets the opening average cost. Owners only. |
| Price | What you sell it for. |
| Stock | Opening quantity on hand. Writes an opening line in the ledger. |
| Reorder at | Minimum stock before goshelf flags it for reordering. |
How it goes in
- Upload the file. goshelf shows the first rows and the columns it matched by name — change any match from the dropdown.
- It checks every row and lists problems before anything is written: a missing name, a price that isn’t a number, a SKU already in use.
- Fix a problem row in place, leave it out, or import the rest and come back to it.
- Press Import. A thousand rows take about a minute.
Nothing is written until you press Import, and goshelf never silently guesses a column. If it isn’t sure which column is which, it asks.
Updating products you already have
Tick “Update existing products” on the review step. Rows are matched by SKU first, then by exact name. Matched rows update the fields you supplied and leave the rest alone; unmatched rows are added as new products. Stock in the file is not applied to existing products — use a stock count for that.
Common problems
| It says | Why, and what to do |
|---|---|
| “Cost ‘Piece’ isn’t a number” | A column is one place out of line — usually a Unit column the matcher didn’t recognise. Open Columns and move it. |
| “SKU already used by …” | That SKU is on another product. Change it in the file, or tick Update existing to update that product instead. |
| Variants came in as separate products | The Group column was empty. Put the same group name on each variant’s row. |
| Prices are 100× too big | The file has prices in paisa or cents. goshelf expects the figure as you’d write it on a label: 1250, not 125000. |