Moving from a spreadsheet: bring your item list into Depo with CSV

If your items live in an Excel or Google Sheets file today, you do not have to type them into Depo one by one: Depo imports items from a CSV file. Import is part of Depo Pro.

1. Start from the template

Download Template on More → Import Items from CSV gives you an empty CSV file with the right header row. Rename your own spreadsheet’s headers to match it.

2. The columns

The first row must be the header row. Columns are matched by their name, not their position, so the order does not matter. Case does not matter either, and spaces and hyphens count as underscores (min stock is the same as min_stock).

Column	What goes in it
name	Item name. Required.
sku	SKU. Required; items are matched by it.
barcodes	Barcodes. Separate several with a vertical bar: 8690000000011|8690000000028
unit	Unit: piece, box, pack, kilogram, gram, liter, milliliter, meter, or the short forms the app shows (pc, kg, mL and so on).
cost	Cost price.
price	Sale price.
min_stock	Minimum stock.
preferred_supplier	The preferred supplier’s name. Created in Depo if it does not exist.
archived	true or false (yes / no and 1 / 0 work too).

Only name and sku are required; missing columns are simply skipped. The items CSV you export from Depo also has total_stock and stock_value columns; they are ignored on import.

A few format rules:

• Numbers use a dot for decimals and no thousands separator: 1250.50 is right, 1,250.50 is not. A CSV is data; on screen Depo still formats numbers for your language.
• Fields are separated by commas. Some spreadsheet apps save CSV with semicolons in regions where the comma is the decimal separator; Depo then cannot find the name and sku columns in the header and says so.
• UTF-8 is the safest encoding for names with accented characters.

3. Matching by SKU

Each row’s SKU is compared with the items in Depo (case does not matter):

• If an item has that SKU, it is updated. Only the columns in the file change: if the file has no price column, sale prices stay as they are. If it has a barcodes column, the item’s barcodes are replaced with the ones in the file.
• If not, a new item is created.
• Items where nothing changes are left alone.

Because matching is by SKU, importing the same file twice does not create duplicates. Fix the spreadsheet and import it again.

4. The preview

When you pick the file, Depo writes nothing yet and shows a preview: how many items will be created, how many updated, how many rows skipped, and which suppliers will be added. Every skipped row says why. The usual reasons:

• the name or SKU is empty,
• the same SKU appears twice in the file,
• the SKU matches more than one item in Depo,
• a price or minimum stock is not a number, or the unit is unknown,
• the row has a different number of fields than the header.

When you confirm, all the changes are saved in one go.

5. Why stock quantities are not imported

Depo never stores stock as a number; it is the sum of stock in, stock out, transfer and adjustment movements. So the CSV brings in your item details but not the quantities on hand. There are two ways to enter your opening stock:

• A count. Count the shelf or the whole stock. When you finish, one adjustment is recorded per item and the counted quantity becomes the stock. See counting stock with a phone.
• Rapid In. Choose Rapid In on the scanner, pick the shelf and scan the items. Each scan adds one unit; fix the quantities in the list and tap Done.

A short checklist

1. Download the template, or rename your headers to name, sku, barcodes…
2. Give every row a name and a SKU, and do not repeat SKUs.
3. Use a dot for decimals and no thousands separator.
4. Save the file as comma-separated CSV.
5. Read the preview. Fix skipped rows in the spreadsheet and import the file again.