If you are just beginning to work with Katana and your business already operates with existing stock, we recommend adding this initial stock amount into Katana.
There are a few different ways to enter your initial stock:
Import product stock directly from your e-commerce platform
If you sell online and manage stock levels on your e-commerce platform (e.g. Shopify or WooCommerce), connect your e-store to Katana and import all your products and related stock levels to Katana directly.
Only product stock can be imported from e-commerce channels since materials typically cannot be managed on e-commerce platforms.
If you're using batch tracking for your items (available via the Full Traceability Add-On), batch information can't be imported from your e-commerce channel. Instead, use our spreadsheet template for importing batches in bulk.
Create a Stock adjustment
To enter the initial stock, create a Stock adjustment in Katana and include all the products and materials you currently have in stock. We recommend entering "Initial stock" in the Reason field for the Stock adjustment to make it more easily identifiable later on.
You can add items to Stock adjustments that have already been created in Katana or create new items by typing an item name into the Item field and selecting Create new [item name] from the drop-down. Afterward, select whether you want to create a new product or material and fill in the essential item details.
Read more about creating a product and creating a material.
If you are using batch tracking for your items (available via the Full Traceability Add-On), you can also specify your batches on the Stock adjustment.
Data import with a spreadsheet if you haven't imported products or materials yet
If you haven't imported any products or materials into Katana, you can import products and materials together with initial stock amounts using our template.
To import, simply follow these steps:
In Katana, go to Settings screen > Data import. Choose the "Download template" link for either "Add new products" or "Add new materials".
Fill in the template(s). (We include comments on column headers to help you understand the structure of the template.)
Make sure the Initial stock quantity and Initial stock cost per unit columns in the template are filled in.
Save the filled template in .xls or .xlsx format.
Creating .xlsx on Mac: Open the spreadsheet in Numbers and choose File > Export to > Excel... from the menu at the top of your screen.Creating .xlsx in Google Sheets: Open the spreadsheet in Google Sheets and choose File > Download as > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).
In Katana, navigate back to Settings screen > Data Import and click Upload data for either "Add new materials" or "Add new products" and select the filled-out template file.
Your initial stock levels will be imported to Katana together with the items. Any item included in the template that doesn't exist in Katana will be created automatically. Depending on the size, the import may take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.
The product or material name must be filled in for an item to be imported. Any rows in the imported file with a blank item name will not be imported.
Note: if any cell in the imported file does not match the requirements for the cell (e.g. column name does not match the template; letters inserted to fields that allow numbers only), the data in the cell will not be imported, and the respective field for the item will be left blank in Katana.
With this template, you cannot upload stock levels with batch tracking (available via the Full Traceability Add-On) information. Use the batch import template for this to update stock levels with batch tracking.
Stock levels spreadsheet import if you already imported products or materials without stock data
If you've already imported your products and materials into Katana but haven't entered any stock levels or you need to update your existing stock levels, use our Update stock levels and stock values import template.
If you use batch tracking for your items (available via the Full Traceability Add-On), please follow this tutorial to import new batches with stock quantities and values to Katana.
As a result of the import, Katana will create a Stock adjustment for entering the initial stock quantities and values and will assign "Imported from Excel" as the adjustment reason. You can find the Stock adjustment from Stock screen > Stock adjustments.
If you require any help, please contact us in chat or via e-mail [email protected].