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Price Book and Cost Codes
Import the Price Book
Import the Price Book
Updated over a week ago

New to building a Price Book? Head here to get a quick overview.

We provide a pre-built import spreadsheet, or you can use your own spreadsheet for your import.

BuildBook's pre-built spreadsheet includes a built-out Price Book to help you get started, plus a blank Price Book to use if you already have an existing library of products and services. It also already has all of the required fields and formatting necessary for your import.

Every item in your Price Book includes a Cost Code, which is made up of an individual code that helps track and report against costs you incur in your business. If you don’t already have Cost Codes set up, we recommend starting with the Cost Code Import. Then you can import your Price Book and match the appropriate Cost Codes with each Price Book item.

Use the provided pre-built spreadsheet

Download BuildBook's template

We recommend using our pre-built import template, as it includes all of the required fields and formatting necessary for your import. To use our template, navigate to your Price Book, click "Import Price Book" and then click the "Download Template" button to download the Excel file to your computer.

We’ve included an important Instructions tab in the template. Please take a few minutes to review the Import Instructions. You will use one of these 2 sheets within the spreadsheet for importing the Price Book:

4) Price Book Sample

5) Price Book - blank

There are 10 columns that you'll see in the template that make up your Price Book in BuildBook:

The data in the Cost Category and Cost Code Columns must match your existing Cost Codes. If you have cost codes in your import file that don't already exist in your BuildBook account, these items will not import. To prevent this, be sure to import your Cost Codes prior to importing the Price Book.

  1. Name: The name of the product or service (ie: Drywall)

  2. Cost Category Number

  3. Cost Code Number

  4. Type: What type of item it is (Labor, Materials, Flat Fee, or Selection)

  5. Unit: Units that the type should be calculated/measured by, depending on the item Type. Materials and Labor include many unit options (Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, Each, Cubic Feet, Cubic Yard, Gallons, Linear Feet, Linear Yard, Pounds, Square Feet, Square Yard, Squares, Tons, Cubic Centimeters, Cubic Meters, Liters, Linear Centimeters, Linear Meters, Kilograms, Square Centimeters, Square Meters, Tonnes)

  6. Tax: Tax can be added into the Price Book item or can be left at 0% and added in later

  7. Qty.: Number of items to be calculated

  8. Unit Cost: Individual unit cost (to be multiplied by the quantity)

  9. Markup: Markup percentage

  10. Description

  11. Tags: Tags are a great way to associate specific categories or project types with your Price Book items, such as "kitchen" or "bathroom." When you go to build an estimate or project budget from your Price Book, you can populate everything using the tag associated with those items.

Flat Fee and Selection types do not have a unit associated with them in BuildBook. For best results, set the Unit to Empty for Flat Fee and Selection types. You will see an example of this in the 4) Price Book - Sample tab.

Use your own spreadsheet

Use your existing Excel or .CSV file

You can also use your own Excel or .CSV file of your own. For the Cost Code columns in the Price Book sheet, be sure to review this article on how you should have these set up to successfully import Cost Codes and Cost Categories.

The Name, Type, and Unit columns are required in order to complete the import.

Import your Price Book file

Import your Price Book the same way you downloaded the templates. Click More > Price Book > Import Items.

Click the Import Price Book button to begin the import process by dragging and dropping, or uploading your file.

Next, you'll be prompted to walk through the setup process:

  1. If your spreadsheet has multiple sheets, choose which one should be used.

  2. Select your header row. By default, the first row is selected for you.
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  3. Click Continue

  4. Change or confirm column matches

    1. This step will attempt to automatically match the data in your file to the data fields in BuildBook.

    2. If you used the provided BuildBook upload template, the data here should match up perfectly and you should not have to make any changes.

      1. Cost Category Number and Cost Code Number do not currently map and are for future implementation.

      2. When mapping the Unit or Type fields, you will need to map any empty fields to Empty prior to continuing.
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    3. If needed, you can change the associated BuildBook field(s) by clicking the "X" and selecting a different field.

  5. Confirm your input

    1. If there are any errors, they will be highlighted in red. You will get more information about the error if you hover over the cell or the Show All Errors dropdown. You can click inside the cell to fix the error, or correct your original file and start the import over again.
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  6. If everything looks good, Click Import [x] records.

When the import is complete, you will see a confirmation page. Click Submit and you will be taken to your Price Book where you'll see the newly imported items.

FAQs

What happens to my existing Price Book items when I import new items?

Any data already in your Price Book will still be there. The new data will be added to what is existing.

I want to start over, how do I delete what I just imported?

You can delete single items by opening them, clicking the ellipses menu in the upper right, and clicking Delete.

To delete multiple items, click the checkboxes next to the items (or click the checkbox next to Name to select all) and then click Delete in the bottom right corner.

Why does my import say some of my data was rejected?

When you import data, you may see the following message: "Some of your data was not accepted by Import Price Book. Preview rejected data in the table below and choose whether to review and correct this data or discard this data and finish your import."

Click the Rejected red button and then click Review Rejected Records in the bottom left.

The rejected fields will be highlighted in red. Hover over the field to see exactly why the data was rejected.

How can I start over with the import while I'm in the middle of the import?

You can simply exit out of the import window, go back to the beginning and click Import Price Book. You'll be asked whether you want to pick up where you left off or start over.

Can existing items be overwritten?

No. Instead, we recommend simply opening the Price Book item and editing it directly within BuildBook. If your spreadsheet includes items that already exist in your Price Book, we recommend deleting them from your spreadsheet before importing them to BuildBook. Importing Price Book items that already exist will result in duplicate entries.

Next up

Create an Estimate

Create the Project Budget

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