Sometimes there are groups of inventory that need adjustments in bulk that Orchid POS does not have a specific function for.
As an example, you have an entire category of inventory that you would like to reduce the Preferred Customer price by $10 instead of using a percentage discount (which is something that can be handled with the Copy Formula tool). Using both the export and import functions in Orchid POS, you can accomplish this change quickly using Excel.
1. Go to Inventory > Manage Products > Inventory
2. Filter for the group of inventory that needs editing (like category or manufacturer) and click SEARCH.
- Orchid POS's product export function only exports current search results.
3. Click Actions... > Export.
- If it's a small group of products, the CSV file (which MUST be imported to Excel not opened) will be created and directly placed in your Downloads folder.
- If it's a larger group of inventory, Orchid POS will notify you that the export file is being created and can be found in Manage > Import / Export Data within a few minutes.
- Click to download the Product Import Template
4. Import the file in Excel and make the edits as needed; add your columns into the Product Import template, save your changes to the csv file.
- To Import a CSV into excel open a blank file, click data, from Text/CSV, Select your file, change data type detection to "Do not detect Data Types", click Load.
- NOTE: It is required that you keep the Part Number column as is; this is how Orchid POS will find the part in your database to make your changes.
- It is recommended that you remove all columns - except part number and barcode/UPC - that are not being updated. For example, keeping only Part Number, Barcode, and Preferred Customer Price.
5. On the Products page, click Actions... > Import / Update.
7. Click OPEN THE FILE BROWSER and find the csv file you had edited and saved. Click NEXT.
8. Map the columns. This means, on the left you will see the column names from your csv/spreadsheet file. On the right, you see the inventory fields offered in Orchid POS. You will see any that match map automatically, but you can change if needed. Click NEXT.
9. Click VALIDATE then, when that is complete, IMPORT.
- The validation step looks for those existing part numbers and if any errors with the inventory or the spreadsheet are found, they will be displayed during this step.
- Validation happens on this tab; the tab must remain open during this process. Once the import begins, you can leave the tab and check Manage > Import / Export Data for progress and status.