In rental management solutions, product records are pretty complex things: they hold all of the general information about a bit of kit that you rent or sell, as well as details about individual assets, components (if part of a package), customer prices, and even cost prices from your suppliers.
To make things easy, product data in Current RMS is deliberately modular. Rather than one huge unwieldy spreadsheet with potentially hundreds of columns, we’ve split product data into multiple spreadsheets. This means it’s really easy to import by working methodically through each type of data.
This modular approach also means that it’s a cinch to update information in future. For example, looking to update your rates at the end of the season? Export a simple spreadsheet with all of your rates listed, make changes, then re-import!
Anatomy of a complete product
A complete product is made up of the product record itself, which holds key attributes such as the name of the product, its weight, and tax class.
Against a product, there are other records to hold related data:
Rates
Rates determine how you charge for this product; rate records are a list of different ways that you charge.Stock levels
Stock levels are the physical unit of the product that you hold; stock level records are a list of asset numbers (i.e. serialized) or stock quantities (i.e. bulk).Supplier costs
Supplier costs allow you to specify costs to sub-rent or purchase a product from different vendors; supplier cost records are a list of these costs.Accessories
Accessories are a way of specifying that a product is rented or sold with other products; accessory records are a list of other products that are rented or sold with this product.Container components
Permanent container components are held against serialized stock levels rather than the product itself; they’re a way of specifying that one asset is generally rented with the same serialized assets.
You may import and export all of the above using CSV spreadsheets.
Do I have to import all of this data?
Everyone’s business is different: larger companies are likely to have more complex product data using all of the records, where smaller operations might just need simple stock tracking.
Everybody’s approach is different, too: some folk will enjoy the level of detail and methodical approach Current has to data entry, where other people might find the prospect of working through spreadsheets a bit daunting!
We’ve built our product import tool to cater for both audiences. Depending on the complexity of your data, you may reduce the number of spreadsheets:
A default rate can be created on the product import spreadsheet, saving the need for a rate import unless you have more a more complex rate setup.
Bulk stock levels can be created on our product import spreadsheet, saving the need for a stock level import for products with a stock method of bulk.
Supplier costs aren’t required – change these on an ad-hoc basis on opportunities if you don’t need all of these recorded.
Mix and match!
Remember, you can always ‘mix and match,’ creating some records via spreadsheet and some records in the web interface. For example, you might like to import a product spreadsheet complete with rates and bulk stock levels, then use the simple screens in Current to add accessories to build up your kits.
Order of import
We recommend importing in the following order:
Product
Stock level
Rate
Accessory
Serialized component
Product supplier cost
Get started
We’ve handy guides that run through all of the column headings that you’ll find on each of our import templates.
Grab them below:
Required data
Before you begin, review the import guides to check for other data that you might want to create in Current RMS first. For example:
Get a head start
Before importing, create a few records in Current RMS first. Add some products, complete with rates, stock levels, accessories, and any other data.
When you’ve done that, head to System Setup > Export Data and export the types of data you just created. The exported CSV files will give you a great idea of how the data you just entered into Current looks on import templates.
The exports also act as ready-to-go templates that you can add to. Just add new records as rows in the CSV files. Remember that the “ID” column should remain blank for new records.