Tips for Using the Data Import Wizard

Data Import Wizard Overview | Import Instructions

Note: This topic may refer to data types not applicable to your Point of Sale installation. For example, Point of Sale Free users cannot import customer, vendor, or item quantity information and Basic users cannot import item pictures.

The following are useful tips, and answers to frequently asked questions, regarding the Data Import Wizard:

- Check your import template to ensure required fields are filled (denoted on the default template and in the custom mappings page of the wizard).

- Save and close the import template before beginning the import.

- Do not enter monetary symbols ($) in currency fields or change the format of the fields. These things will cause the import to fail.

- If doing your first or a very large import, you may find it helpful to create a new company data file and import to that file to test before importing into your real company file. It is also strongly recommended you make a backup of your company data before an import (the wizard will give you the chance to do so).

- If the template file you are using has been provided by a vendor or outputted from another application, the field names (columns) may not match the Point of Sale field names. You will have to do one of these things in this case:

- Rename the fields/columns in your custom template to match those in Point of Sale (look at the default template for the data you are importing and match the names exactly).

- Copy and paste the information from the custom file into the default template provided with Point of Sale.

- Create a custom import mapping, this tells Point of Sale how to match up the field names. If you import frequently from the same file format, such as from a vendor catalog, save the mapping file and associate it with the vendor for reuse.

- Refer to the documentation in other applications for directions on how to export data to a file. Choose an Excel option or a comma delimited text file (.csv extension).

- Because different programs often store data differently, review the data before importing to make sure it is in the correct format for Point of Sale. For example, your previous software may have stored full customer names in one field. Point of Sale stores customers first and last names separately in different fields. Edit the data as necessary in the import file so that it is in the correct format. If using Point of Sale's default template you can get additional information about each field by placing your cursor on the red triangle in the upper-right corner of the applicable column heading.

- If an imported item contains the same department, vendor, item name, attribute, and size as an existing item in Point of Sale, then the item will be imported with a number appended to the end of the Item Name field (e.g. "Hammer" and "Hammer1").

- If you use the default template file more than once to import data, make sure to clear any old data before entering new data and importing again. Otherwise, you may create duplicate records in Point of Sale.

- If you need to change a value for a large number of records, consider exporting the records to Excel, doing a global find and replace to update the value in Excel, and then re-importing. This procedure can be used to change the department name for a large group of items for example.

- (Pro) If you have enabled the multiple unit of measure feature, individual fields for each unit (UPC, alternate lookup, price, etc.) are added to the custom file mappings options.

- (Pro) You can enter on-hand quantities for all of your stores on the template at one time, saving time and effort.

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