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Importing product recipes
Importing product recipes

Import product recipes to Katana to efficiently manage components and structure the manufacturing process.

Dayvid Lorbiecke avatar
Written by Dayvid Lorbiecke
Updated over a week ago

Import product recipes, or bills of materials (BOM) to manage components and quantities required for production. This helps you to save time by bulk importing recipe data through a template, ensuring that all necessary materials are accurately tracked and managed.

You can import product recipes using our template. If you have product recipes already available on a spreadsheet and/or a large number of products in Katana, it's usually more efficient to upload recipes using our import template rather than adding manually.

You can also update existing default product recipes in bulk using data import. Read more here

Importing product recipes

  1. Download the template in Katana from Settings screen > Data import > Add new product recipes / BOMs > Download template.

    Where the upload data is for adding product recipes in the data import in the settings screen

  2. Fill in the downloaded template. We've added instructions and comments on the template's column headers to help you understand the structure. You'll find more guidelines below in this article, but if you have any questions, reach out to us in chat or email [email protected].

  3. Save the 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).

  4. In Katana, navigate to Settings screen > Data Import. Click Upload data under Add new product recipes / BOMs and select the filled template file.

  5. You can choose whether to replace the existing product recipes in Katana or add ingredients from the imported file to existing recipes. If you haven't entered recipes to Katana and are performing a first-time import, either option has the same result.

    Popup when importing product recipes

  6. Before uploading, Katana will review the file and inform you if there are errors with rows or columns. If rows are skipped, check the file for mistakes and reupload.

    Example if there is an issue with some rows:

    Import with some row issues

    If there are no issues with the import:

    Import with no issues

  7. When the import completes, you can access your new recipes by navigating to a product card from the Items screen and selecting the Product recipe / BOM tab.

Principles, requirements, and comments

  • When defining recipes in the template, only use products and ingredients that already exist in Katana. New items can't be created by uploading recipes. Use our product and material import templates for adding items.

  • Products and ingredients on the spreadsheet are matched to Katana items based on the variant code / SKU. Using the variant code / SKU is required to import recipes for both products and materials.

  • If a product (variant) has multiple ingredients, create multiple rows for that product (variant) and enter each ingredient into a new row in the spreadsheet. Make sure that you also duplicate the product variant code / SKU on each of those lines.

  • Product variant code / SKU, Ingredient variant code / SKU and Quantity columns are required. Make sure the column name in the uploaded file matches our template.

  • Product variant name and Ingredient variant name columns are optional. These fields are only included for better usability purposes if entering the item name makes it easier for you to prepare the template. The data in this field is not imported to Katana. Matching to an item in Katana is only made based on Variant code / SKU, not by the product or ingredient name.

  • Notes will be imported to the respective field for each ingredient in the Product recipe in Katana. Add notes to the ingredient such as more detailed specifications, instructions for handling, etc.

  • Unit of measure for the ingredient is set on the item card in Katana, it cannot be defined via product recipe import.


Your feedback is invaluable. Let us know your thoughts on this article or anything in Katana you'd like to see improved: [email protected]

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