How to import purchase orders and supplier confirmations

What are suppliers and purchase orders? has three importers on Buying › Purchase orders, for three jobs: bringing an existing order book in, turning a supplier's confirmation into a new order, and adding a confirmation's lines to an order you already have. Each one shows a preview before it writes anything.

Before you start

You need the same two rows in Settings › Permissions as for writing an order by hand: Change stock, receiving and store settings, which shows the import buttons, and Edit purchase orders and the buying calendar, which saves what you import. See How to set who can do what.

Importing writes into Tideswell only. Your spreadsheet is untouched, and nothing is sent to Shopify or to a supplier.

Where are the importers?

On Buying › Purchase orders, press the ⋯ button beside New PO on the List or the Board. It holds Import CSV and Import confirmation.

The Revisions calendar has the same two as buttons, beside Add PO. The third importer, Import lines, sits above the product table on an order's own page.

How do you import your existing order book?

Use Import CSV when you are moving off a spreadsheet. It creates one purchase order per row.

1. Press ⋯, then Import CSV.
2. Choose your file, or paste the rows into the box.
3. Press Preview.
4. Read the count, such as 42 ready, 3 errors, and the rows listed under it.
5. Press Import.

A message then confirms how many orders were created and how many were updated.

What does the order book file need?

A header row naming its columns. The dialog shows the full set:

vendor,po_number,revise_by_date,ship_date,days_out,original_amount,revised_amount,status

Columns can come in any order, and only vendor and po_number have to be there. Every row needs a vendor, a PO number and a status: Revised, No change, Deliver early or ASAP.

Write dates as 3/14/2027 or 2027-03-14, days_out as a whole number, and amounts as plain numbers such as 4250.00. Each PO number can appear once in the file.

What happens to an order that is already in Tideswell?

It is updated, not duplicated. A row whose PO number matches an existing order rewrites its dates, amounts and status, and keeps its stage, supplier and currency.

A new order starts in your first stage, Draft by default. It links to the supplier whose name matches the vendor cell, as an order written by hand does.

The file has no arrival date column, so an imported row leaves Arrival empty, on an order it updates as well as a new one. Set each order's Arrival afterwards with the pencil at the end of its row, as in How to write a purchase order.

How do you turn a supplier's confirmation into an order?

Use Import confirmation when the supplier sends a spreadsheet for an order you have not entered yet.

1. Press ⋯, then Import confirmation.
2. Type the Vendor, such as Portside Mills, and the PO number.
3. Press Choose CSV file and pick the supplier's file, saved as CSV.
4. Match the file's columns to Tideswell's fields, as below.
5. Check the preview, then press Create PO.
6. Press View purchase order to open the new order.

The order starts in your first stage, with its lines at the file's quantities.

How do you match the file's columns?

Under Which column is the identifier?, choose the column that names each product. It can hold barcodes, SKUs or Shopify variant IDs.

Then answer What type of identifier is this column? with SKU, Barcode or Shopify Variant ID. A column headed barcode, UPC, EAN or GTIN is set to Barcode for you, and one headed variant ID to Shopify Variant ID.

Under Other fields, choose the Quantity column, which is required. Product / description and Unit cost are optional, but each line needs an identifier or a description.

Does it remember a supplier's columns?

Yes. After a successful import, Tideswell keeps that vendor's choices.

Next time, the columns fill in by themselves for any heading the new file shares. On Import confirmation, type the vendor before you choose the file so the saved choices can apply.

How do you add a confirmation to an order you already have?

Press Import lines above the product table on the order's page. It works the same way, without the vendor and PO number boxes, and adds the file's products to this order as new lines.

The file's quantity goes in as the Ordered quantity. A product already on the order is skipped, and two rows for the same product are added together into one line.

Import lines is there while the order is still being written. Once the order reaches a placed stage, such as Order placed, its lines are frozen and the button goes away.

What if the confirmation arrives after the order is placed?

Type the supplier's numbers into the Revised column. That is the record of what they confirmed, and the Ordered column keeps what you asked for.

Which stages freeze the lines depends on what each stage is set to mean in Settings › Stages › Purchase orders. See How to move a purchase order through its stages and How to add products and choose your columns.

What does the preview tell you?

It shows the first five rows of the file, with the identifier column highlighted, then a count such as 63 rows read, 2 unusable. Each unusable row is listed by number with the reason.

Fewer lines may be added than rows read. A product already on the order is skipped, and rows that repeat one product become a single line.

What does the summary tell you afterwards?

How many lines were imported, how many were matched to Shopify, and how many were skipped because they were already on the order.

It also says when lines already on the order were matched to a Shopify product (their quantity stays the same), and when duplicate rows in your file were added together.

What does Matched to Shopify mean?

The line's identifier was found in your Shopify catalogue. A matched line takes its name, SKU, photo and stock figures from Shopify, whatever the supplier's file called it.

An unmatched line still imports, as free text. It shows no on-hand or incoming figures, and receiving it does not change Shopify stock, so match it before the goods arrive.

How do you fix lines that did not match?

Press the link icon (Link to Shopify) at the end of the line and pick the right product in Link to a Shopify product. This works at any stage, even after the order is received.

If Tideswell says some products could not be matched this time, run Import lines again with the same file while the order is still being written. It links the lines that are already there and does not add them twice.

Why was a row unusable?

The preview names the reason on each row. The common ones:

• No product name and no identifier. The row is blank in both columns you chose.
• A quantity that is not a whole number. Fix the cell, or check you chose the right column.
• A decimal comma. A cost written 24,50 is refused, and the message shows it written as 24.50. Use a full stop for decimals and a comma only for thousands, as in 1,200.

Fix the file, then run Import lines on the order with it. Lines that already went in are skipped, so nothing doubles.

Your workspace may use its own words for purchase orders and suppliers; Settings › Terminology shows both.