Pastel - Inventory

**elaine25** · 28-Jul-11, 12:07 PM

Hi again Everyone

I am setting up a new store in Pastel - is there a way to import directly from Excel or will I need to retype my inventory?

Elaine

**Martinco** · 28-Jul-11, 12:55 PM

It can be done but is quite complicated. If you do not have zillions of product codes I suggest you add these in the normal way.

**Neville Bailey** · 28-Jul-11, 01:42 PM

Hi Elaine,

It is possible to import your inventory masterfile data from a Excel CSV file, but it needs to be set up in a very specific layout.

Give me a shout if you need any assistance - I can log onto your system remotely.

**elaine25** · 28-Jul-11, 02:36 PM

I have about 1000 items - what layout should it be in?

**Neville Bailey** · 28-Jul-11, 02:56 PM

Go to Pastel Help and search under Index for Export / Import - you will find the layout requirements there.

Another way of finding out what the layout is, is to create one stock item manually and the export the inventory masterfile onto a CSV file - then you can simply copy and paste your other stock items from your Excel file.

Beware - if you have never done this before, you are bound to get frustrated as the formats of the various columns have to be precisely correct!

**Martinco** · 28-Jul-11, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by Neville Bailey

Beware - if you have never done this before, you are bound to get frustrated as the formats of the various columns have to be precisely correct!

That is what caused me to give up eventually but for a 1000 items it would be worth while to battle a bit.
As Neville said...........it is the formats that gets very tricky.
My suggestion would be that you do the export and just add one item and play around till you get the file to import correctly, then add the other items.

**elaine25** · 17-Aug-11, 01:28 PM

Hi all

Once again - I am back...
As a new Pastel user I have found this very frustrating....

Can one of you experts out ther help me If I give you an example of what I want in my inventory file?

Elaine

**geraldenek** · 17-Aug-11, 04:44 PM

Hi Elaine

On your pastel - go to edit, inventory, item file just create one item by putting in all the information on all the tabs as you would like it done. save this

Then go to File, export/import, export inventory items

click on the export inventory file and expand it, choose where you would like to have it saved and the name. before you hit save put .csv after the file name

click save,process

this will have the file in an excel format and you can copy and paste what you need from your orignal excel file to the new one. and you can just import it again the same way just remember to untick the box which states map fields

**Martinco** · 11-Sep-12, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by geraldenek

Hi Elaine

On your pastel - go to edit, inventory, item file just create one item by putting in all the information on all the tabs as you would like it done. save this

Just another tip on inventory:
When creating your inventory codes and descriptions.....................steer clear of using special characters (,./>< etc. etc. ) as this confuses the .csv file and causes the columns to shift.
When importing this will cause errors.

**Stephanus** · 06-Sep-13, 08:33 AM

thank you for the great assistance in almost importing my inventory. i am using xpress 12 and keep getting the same 'group does not exist'' error. even when i export a csv and make an exact copy of the first line(with different inventory code). when importing i will get an error saying that the second line has an error, but the first has been succesfully imported....but they are the exact copy...i'm confused.
please assist