Bulk Editing Items Part 1: Preparation

Bulk editing items, Part 1: Preparation

Increase the efficiency of your editing process with some advance preparation.

What you’ll learn in Bulk editing items, Part 1: Preparation

• Familiarize yourself with the data types that must be predefined in either SOS Inventory or QuickBooks Online before they can be used successfully in bulk editing items
• Learn the kinds of data changes that cannot be made via a bulk edit
• Identify the other videos in the bulk edit series that are relevant companions to a bulk edit of items

Video Transcript

Bulk editing items: topics and relevant companion videos

This tutorial is one of a series of videos on bulk editing in SOS Inventory. The presentation will explain the preparations you need to make—and the limitations you need to be aware of—before you begin editing items.

Several other videos are critical companions to the content given here. We recommend that you view Bulk editing: introduction and Bulk editing rules before watching this presentation. Bulk editing items, Part 2: Working with data is another important video to watch that addresses how to bulk edit items.

Bulk editing limitations for items

Master items and item variants cannot be added or edited via the bulk edit process. If you need to make changes to these kinds of items, you will need to make them within SOS Inventory. For serial and lot-tracked items, it is fine to make changes to static data—such as sales price, purchase cost, description, etc.—but you cannot enable or disable serial or lot tracking for an item via the bulk edit process unless the item’s quantity on hand is at zero. If the quantity is not zero, you must take other steps first. Consult the SOS Inventory User Guide for more information on master items, variants, serial and lot tracking.

Data that must be predefined before use in a bulk edit

Please note that certain columns on the bulk edit spreadsheet require that the data you enter already exist in the system. For example, let’s say you want to edit an item so that a one-year warranty is assigned to it. If you enter a one-year warranty in the bulk edit sheet, but the warranty does not exist in the system, your data import will fail. So you need to set up your warranties in SOS Inventory before you use them in your bulk edit form.

If you intend to assign items to bins via the bulk edit process, please note your data export file must be for a single bin-tracked location in SOS Inventory. The bins must already exist in the system as well. See the SOS Inventory User Guide for more information on establishing a bin-tracked location and creating bins.

Income, asset, COGS and expense accounts, as well as classes, also must be predefined. Please note that accounts are created in QuickBooks Online. Classes may be created in either SOS Inventory or QuickBooks; but if you use a parent/child structure—that is, one that includes both classes and sub-classes–create them in QuickBooks Online.

If your edits include specifying preferred vendors for items, those vendors also must be predefined in SOS Inventory. Do you need to add many vendors to the system? If so, we recommend that you perform a vendor bulk edit before executing a bulk edit for items.

Categories are another data type that should be predefined. Although you can create a new category via a bulk edit, the assignment of an item to a category requires that the category already exists in SOS Inventory. If you want to use the bulk edit process to create categories as well as assign items to them, you will need to execute two separate bulk edits for items: the first one to add the categories, and the second one to assign items to those categories.

The exceptions to this rule are if you are a brand-new customer to both SOS Inventory and QuickBooks Online—or are a new customer who will use SOS as a stand-alone program. In these instances, you can use a single bulk edit. Enter your categories into the spreadsheet first, as indicated by the yellow highlights—and be sure to enter Category in the TypeOfItem column. Then follow with entering your items. As you add an item, specify to which category the item is assigned in the Category column, as shown in green. The order is important, as the system needs to import the categories first in order for the items’ category assignments to be imported successfully.

On international accounts, sales tax codes and purchasing tax codes must be defined in QuickBooks Online before they can be used in the bulk edit file.

Lastly, if you intend to assign items to bins via the bulk edit process, please note your data export file must be for a single bin-tracked location. It is fine to type either an existing or a new bin in the item row. When the data is imported into SOS Inventory, any new bins will be added to the system.

Now that we’ve finished covering these preliminaries, you’re ready for Bulk Editing Items, Part 2: Working with data. Thank you for watching this presentation!