First, you need to export your price data into csv format. “csv” means comma-separated values. A csv file looks like the above picture.

The values of each column are separated by commas.

Shop’NCook Pro software accepts also tab-separated and semicolumn-separated values. You can easily export spreadsheets from excel to comma or tab delimited formats, by selecting “Save As…” in excel. Select then the txt format for tab delimited format, and the csv for comma delimited format.

Shop’NCook Pro accepts also files with fixed column width.

To import the csv file, go to the File menu in Shop’NCook Pro software, select “Import supermarket data”, then select the file you want to import.

You are given the option of importing the price data as a new supermarket or to add the data to an existing supermarket.

Since it is the first time you import the price of this particular supplier, you have to select “Import as new supermarket”.

The software will show you then a window where you can input information about the new supermarket. It is important that you input at the minimum the name of the supermarket and the language of the products.

In the shopping list and ordering information tab, you can select what information should be displayed in the shopping list, the overhead cost to order to this supplier or to go to this supermarket, which is important for price optimization, and give also the information the software needs to send directly the purchase order to your supplier from the software. We will ignore these tabs for now. They will make the subject of another tutorial.

Click on OK to create the supermarket.

Check that the software has correctly recognized the format of the file, in this case, comma-separated values, and click OK.

In the next window that opens, Shop’NCook shows you the content of the first two lines of each column.

If the first line of each column is a header, you have to select to ignore the first line, so that it is not imported as a product.

Next, you have to indicate to the software what is the content of each column. You can select between aisle or category name, article name, brand, barcode, product id, size and selling unit. You can simply ignore the columns that don’t correspond to any of these.

In the example, the first column is the category name, the second is the brand, the next one is the product id, the next one is the article name. Then we have the product description that will be ignored, the size of the article and finally the price of the article. All the other columns are ignored.

Here we don’t have columns for the barcode or for the selling unit. The selling unit concerns only the way the article is displayed in the shopping list and you can usually ignore it.

Select also “Match automatically articles with the database”, to tell to the software to try to link articles from your suppliers to existing items in the main database.

Click on Import to import the price data in the new supermarket.

Shop’NCook Pro displays next the supermarket editor with the imported data. On the left, you have the product categories. You have to click on a category to display its content. The first column of the central panel shows the article name and the second shows the corresponding item of the database. The articles in black have been automatically linked. The remaining articles is red have to be linked manually.

To link an article that does not exist in the database of grocery items, you have to add it to the database by clicking on the database icon next to the article.

Select then an appropriate category and where in the category you want to add it. You can eventually check “Main list” to add it to the list of main grocery items and set the unit into which you want to have it preferably in the shopping list.

Click OK to add the grocery item to the database and link it to the article.

To link to an existing item of the main database, click on the arrow of the pull down menu to display the available choice and select an appropriate item. If you don’t see the item you are looking for in the selection, you can type the item name in the field of the pull-down menu and click again on the arrow to see a new selection of items.

Note that you can have several articles linked to the same grocery item. When it is the case, the software choose the least expensive article for costing purpose or to make the shopping list. This choise can be however overriden manually.

When you have finished linking all the articles you use to the database of grocery items, click on OK to save the supermarket.

Linking the article to the main database must only be done once. After that, updating the price information can be routinely done in a couple of minutes.

Suppose that you have a file containing new price information for the supplier that we have imported earlier. In the following, we show how to update the prices.

Select again “Import supermarket data” from the File menu and select the new file. You have to select this time to import into an existing supermarket, and not a new supermarket, and you select the supermarket that you want to update, that is the one that we created earlier.

Like before, check that the file format has been correctly recognized and click OK to read the file. You are presented again with a window showing the two first lines of each column and you have to select waht is the content of each column.

This time however, you can choose to ignore all the columns that you don’t want to update, except for the column id that is necessary to recognize the article.

For example, if you only want to update the price information and corresponding size, you only need to indicate the columns with the product id, the price and the article size, and ignore all the other columns.

You must now indicate to the software how to match the price information with the correct article.

The software can recognize the articles by matching the product id, the barcode or the article name. The product id and the barcode are usually good choices. The article name is not as good a choice, as often you will have articles with same names from different brands, and should be used only when the product ids and barcodes are not available.

If necessary, select also “Ignore first line (column headers)” and click OK to update the prices.