Import materials from a spreadsheet

Bring your ingredients, packaging and components into Kerno with the stock you have now, from a CSV or Excel file. Kerno shows every row before anything is saved.

Before you start, put one material per row with at least these columns: Name, Category, Quantity on hand and Unit. Category is one of Ingredient, Packaging, Component, Consumable or Other. Add a Unit cost too: a material without a cost has its stock valued at 0, and Kerno flags it as needing a cost. To record more than one lot of a material, repeat it on another row.

Import your materials

1. Go to Materials and click Import.
2. Choose your file under CSV or Excel file. It can be up to 5 MB and 2,000 rows.
3. Click Continue.
4. Check each Kerno field under Column in your file. Kerno matches the columns it recognizes and shows the first value of each, so you can see it read the right one. Change any that are wrong, or set a field to Not imported.
5. Click Preview import.
6. Under When a material already exists, choose Skip it or Update it.
7. Leave Create missing suppliers on to add the suppliers your file names that Kerno doesn't have yet.
8. Check the rows. Each one says what will happen, such as "Create material with SKU (generated) and a lot of 16 oz". Click Edit to fix a row.
9. Click Import, followed by the number of rows (for example Import 4 rows).
10. Click View inventory to see your new stock.

The results page counts what was imported, updated, skipped and failed, names any suppliers it created, and lists what happened to each row. Your materials are now on the Materials page, ready for a BOM.

Good to know

• Every new material gets a SKU: the one in your file, or one Kerno makes (SKU-0001 and on), priced at the unit cost.
• A row without a lot number gets one from Kerno.
• If your dates are written like 03/04/2027, choose Day first or Month first under Dates like 03/04/2027 in the preview.
• Update it brings a material's stock to the quantity in your file with a stock count correction, and replaces its details with the cells your file fills in.
• Without a Currency column, costs are read in the workspace currency.

Related articles

• What you can import, and in what order
• Export your data