Import products into a quote from a spreadsheet
Paste rows or upload a .csv, .tsv, .txt or .xlsx file to add many products to a quote at once: map the columns, choose how prices and quantities are handled, then review the rows. Catalog products are created or updated immediately; quote lines stay unsaved until you press Save.
Written By Bram Fofana
Last updated About 3 hours ago
When a distributor sends you a quote as a spreadsheet, you do not have to add each line to your Salesbuildr quote by hand. The Line items view of the quote editor has an Import products button that takes the spreadsheet, works out which column is which, and stages the rows as quote lines. Press Save to write them onto the quote — until then they behave like products you added with Add products.
Line items is available once it has been enabled for your Salesbuildr environment. If you do not see it in the quote editor, ask your administrator whether it is switched on for your account.
Import products also needs importing to be enabled for your account and you to have permission to import products — the same requirements as the Import products action on the classic quote page. If the button is not there, ask your administrator to check your permissions.
Step 1 — Paste or upload
Choose one of the two tabs:
Paste Data — copy the rows out of Excel or Google Sheets and paste them into the box. Each column must be separated by a tab, which is what you get by copying cells straight out of a spreadsheet.
Upload file — drop a
.csv,.tsv,.txtor.xlsxfile onto the dashed area, or press Choose a file. The area then shows the file name and how many rows were read, with Replace file and Remove if you picked the wrong one.
Leave The first row is a header row switched on if your first row holds column names like Part Number or Unit Price. Switch it off if your data starts on the very first row — otherwise that first product is treated as a heading and is not imported.
Press Continue.
Step 2 — Map Columns
Each product field gets a row here. Pick the sheet column that should fill it. The list shows the column name and the value from your first data row so you can check the match.
Salesbuildr fills this in for you where it recognises the heading. Common names are understood, so Part Number, MPN # or Manufacturer Part Number all find the MPN field, Unit Price or Sell Price find Sales price, and Net Price, Cost Price or Buy Price find Cost.
If a field is mapped to the wrong column, or is not recognised at all, pick the right column from the list. Set a field to None to leave it out of the import.
Salesbuildr also remembers the mapping you used last time. When it restores one you will see Restored from last import above the table, which is useful when the same supplier sends you the same layout every week. Check it against the first-row values anyway, since a supplier may have moved their columns around.
You need at least one column mapped to MPN or Product name, and a column mapped to Category, before you can carry on. Category is required.
Step 3 — Resolve values
Match each value in a mapped Category, Unit, Term, Manufacturer, or Distributor column to a record you already have. You can continue without matching every value. A value you leave blank is imported without that match. This step is skipped only when none of those columns are mapped.
Step 4 — Source & Options
Source
Pick the Supplier the imported lines came from, if you want the lines to record it. Supplier is hidden when a Distributor column is mapped.
Processing Options
Keep Product Name — on by default. When a row matches a product that is already in your catalog, the catalog's own name is kept. Switch it off only if you want the import to replace that product's whole record — name, description, category and manufacturer — with what is in this sheet. Pricing is a separate option: Update Catalog Pricing below.
Missing Part Numbers — switch this on to skip any row that has no part number. Left off, such a row is imported by name only.
Update Catalog Pricing — on by default. This applies the sheet's prices to a product that is already in your catalog, not just to newly created ones. If you switch it off, the prices in your sheet are ignored entirely and each line takes the price already on the catalog product. Keep Product Name does not control prices.
Product can be sold — on by default for products this import creates.
Is serialized — off by default.
Include white label bundles — off by default. Turn it on when a Bundle name column should create white-label bundle items.
Field Defaults
Number format — how prices and quantities in the sheet are written.
Manufacturer (if missing) — search for a manufacturer to use for rows whose manufacturer column is blank. Rows that do have one are unaffected.
Zero Quantity — what to do with a row whose quantity is zero, blank or unreadable: import it as quantity 1, import it as zero, or skip the row.
Sell Price Calculation — Use Imported Price takes the selling price from your sheet. Choose the markup option instead to work the selling price out from each row's cost, and enter the percentage you want.
Step 5 — Review
The last step lists exactly what will be staged, with a count at the top of how many rows will be added when you save.
Before importing you can:
Untick a row to leave it out.
Change a quantity with the − and + buttons, or by typing over the number.
A row that cannot be imported is ticked off for you and greyed out, with the reason beside it — for example a row skipped because it has no part number while Missing Part Numbers is switched on. Rows like that cannot be ticked back on; change the setting on the previous step instead.
The Name column shows a dash when no column in your sheet was mapped to the product name. That is not a problem: a new product is named after its part number, and a row that matches a product already in your catalog keeps that product's name.
Press Import. A progress view replaces the steps and shows how many rows have been processed, succeeded and failed, listing any failures by row. When it finishes the dialog closes and the new lines appear in the grid as unsaved — the same as products you added with Add products. Press Save to write them onto the quote. If you reload or discard changes first, the quote lines disappear (the catalog products the import created stay).
You can import while you already have unsaved edits; both sets save together.
What the import does to your product catalog
Rows are matched to your catalog by part number (MPN), ignoring upper and lower case.
A row that matches an existing product is staged on the quote as that product. Its catalog record is left alone unless you switched Keep Product Name off, and its pricing is updated from the sheet only while Update Catalog Pricing is on.
A row with no match creates a new product in your catalog, which then appears in product search like any other.
Columns that need matching to existing records
Category is required as a mapped column. On Resolve values you can match each category in the sheet to a category you already have, and you can continue when some of those matches are still blank.
The same step appears for Unit, Term, Manufacturer, and Distributor when you map those columns. Those matches are optional too. Bundle name can be mapped too. Turn on Bill of materials on Map Columns when the sheet has bill-of-materials columns; those columns are added to the product description.
Source & Options also has Product can be sold, Is serialized, Include white label bundles, and Number format. Supplier is hidden when a Distributor column is mapped. A Distributor cell you matched is the distributor for that row. A blank Distributor cell does not fall back to a supplier, and a product that already exists can keep the distributor already on its catalog record.