Step 1: Open Import
Go to Calendar, Customers, Product Range, Ingredients or Locations.
Click on Tools in the top right-hand corner.
Click on Import. This is the first tile in every Tools menu.
Step 2: Choose what you want to import
Catermonkey asks, “What do you want to import?” The option that corresponds to the screen you’ve come from is already highlighted: for example, if you’re coming from Customers, it will be Customers.
You can view the options as tiles or as a list, using the two buttons at the top. In tile view, click on an option to open it. In list view, each option has a brief description: choose one and click Continue at the bottom.
Smart / AI: Catermonkey reads the document out to you.
Tasks: these appear in your Calendar. A task is a booking for one customer and one event, such as a purchase order, a confirmed quotation or a photo of one.
Products: these go into your Product Range. These are the dishes and items you sell to your customers, taken from your menus, brochures and price lists.
Customers: these go under ‘Customers’. Use a contact list, an address book or an export from your CRM.
Ingredients: these go under ‘Ingredients’. This covers everything you purchase from suppliers: supplier invoices, delivery notes or wholesale price lists. You can often ask your supplier for an Excel file of your purchases.
Venues: these go under ‘Venues’. These are the spaces, rooms and venues that you manage yourself and allow to be booked, not your customers’ addresses.
Calendar: an export of your online calendar (Outlook, Apple, Google) as an .ics file. Each event becomes a booking. See “Importing your calendar” below.
Classic / Spreadsheet: you map the columns of an Excel file yourself. Use this for Customers, Products and Ingredients if you prefer to map each column yourself, or for an export from Horeko or EasyParty.
Step 3: Upload a file or paste text
Every smart import works in the same way. Select a tab:
Upload file: drag and drop a file, or click to select one. You can use a PDF, an Excel file (.xlsx or .xls), a CSV file or an image (JPG, PNG or WebP). An image taken with your phone will also work, as long as the text is legible.
Paste text: paste the text from an email, a quote or a list, and click Read this text.
Then click Extract document.
Please note:
You can import one file at a time. Want to import more files? Then repeat the steps for each file.
PDFs must not exceed 50 pages. A longer PDF will be rejected immediately, with a message stating: split it into smaller files and import them one by one.
iPhone photos in HEIC format cannot yet be read. Take a screenshot of the photo, or set your camera to ‘Most compatible’.
Are you uploading an Excel file containing products or ingredients? If so, you can choose which worksheets to import. For products, you can also specify whether your prices include VAT.
Step 4: Let Catermonkey read your file
Catermonkey is now reading your document. This may take a little while, which is normal.
You don’t need to wait: for each type, you can close the window and carry on working. You’ll receive a notification as soon as the results are ready to check, and from there you can open the file exactly where you left off. Nothing will be created until you confirm it in the next step.
Step 5: Check the results and import
Products, customers, ingredients and locations: you’ll see an overview of everything Catermonkey has found. For products, for example, this includes a list of your dishes and prices. Deselect anything you don’t want, then click Import N at the bottom. If Catermonkey was only able to read part of a long PDF, this will be indicated in the overview: split the document to import the rest. Do you work with multiple brands? If so, under ‘Available for brands’, tick the brands under which the new products will be offered. If you do not tick any, they will be available for all brands you are authorised to use.
Orders: you check the order in two steps, the same as you’re familiar with from New quote. Nothing is created until you click Create order.
Details: the customer, name of the event, date and time, end date, location, type, number of people and brand. Correct any inaccuracies. For the customer and location fields, Catermonkey will indicate whether it has found an existing entry in your account or whether a new one will be created. Click the cross to remove it and search for another, or click New customer; use the suggestion to restore what Catermonkey had found. If the document does not specify an event date – such as in a quotation that only shows the date it was created – the date field will remain blank, with the message ‘We haven’t found a date — please enter one’. Enter the date: an order cannot be created without a date. Then click Next.
Products: the lines that Catermonkey has read, with their prices, VAT and totals, as shown in the order. Adjust quantities, names and prices, remove lines, or add products from your range. Lines that Catermonkey could not link to a product in your range do not yet have a price: enter this here or later in the order. If the document had no lines at all, this step will start blank: add products now, or create the order and add them later.
Click on Create task, and the new task will open in your Calendar. Each document becomes a single task: a document containing multiple entries is not split up, so import them one by one. Start again takes you back to choose a different file.
Skip verification. Do you trust the job as it appears in the document? If so, tick Skip verification below your file before clicking Read document. Catermonkey will then create the order straight away and open it. If anything is missing, such as the date, you’ll still see the verification screen so you can fill it in first. Catermonkey remembers your choice on this computer.
Result: your data is in the right place in Catermonkey, without you having to retype anything.
Has Catermonkey not found anything?
Then nothing will be imported. For orders, Catermonkey will still display the order for you to check if the document mentions a customer or a date, even without any lines: you’ll then need to add the products yourself. Often, the document belongs to a different category. For example, you may have uploaded a supplier’s invoice as ‘Products’, whilst it actually belongs under ‘Ingredients’. Catermonkey tells you what it thinks the document is and offers the option Import as…, which re-reads the same file or text using the correct type, without needing to upload it again. You can also click on Choose a different import.
Where can I find my imported data?
You have imported… | You’ll find it in… |
Orders | Calendar |
Calendar | Calendar |
Products | Product range |
Customers | Customers |
Ingredients | Ingredients |
Locations | Locations |
Import your calendar
Do you keep track of your events in an online calendar such as Outlook, Apple or Google? Export them as an .ics file and then select Calendar in Import (step 2).
Upload the .ics file in the same way as any other file.
Select the start and end dates for the import, and tick the events you want. All events are already ticked by default.
Click Start importing tasks and events.
The name, start and end times, description and location of each event will appear immediately in your Calendar. This works for every account, regardless of how many tasks it already contains.
Do you have any questions about this? Please feel free to contact us!
Kind regards,
The Catermonkey Team🍌