Importing Categories

Categories is a Tier 3 (Nice to Have) data type. Importing your category structure allows you to organize your inventory into a logical hierarchy before adding items, ensuring that every product can be assigned to the correct category from the start.

Before You Begin

• Prepare a CSV file with your category data
• Plan your category hierarchy in advance — decide which categories are top-level and which are subcategories
• Import categories before importing inventory items. When you import items, you can assign each item to a category. If the categories do not exist yet, those assignments will fail. Setting up your category structure first ensures a smooth inventory import.

Step-by-Step Import

1. Open the Data Exchange Center from the Business menu
2. Click Import on the Categories card
3. Click Browse and select your CSV file
4. Click Next to proceed to column mapping
5. Ensure the following required field is mapped:
   • Category Name — the name of the category (required)
6. Map optional fields as available:
   • Parent Category — the name of the parent category for building a hierarchy
   • Description — a description of the category
7. Click Next to validate
8. Review the validation results — check for parent category lookup failures
9. Click Import to create or update the categories

Available Fields

How Upsert Works for Categories

The categories import supports upsert (update or insert) behavior. AccuArk uses the Category Name as the match key:

• If a category with the same name already exists, that category is updated with the new parent and description values
• If no match is found, a new category is created

This means you can safely re-import your categories file after making changes. Existing categories are updated, and new categories are added.

Building a Category Hierarchy

The Parent Category field allows you to build a tree structure of categories and subcategories. The parent category value must match the name of an existing category in AccuArk.

For example, suppose you want to create this hierarchy:

Electronics
  - Computers
      - Laptops
      - Desktops
  - Phones
Clothing
  - Shirts
  - Pants

Your CSV would look like this:

category_name,parent_category,description
Electronics,,All electronic products
Computers,Electronics,Computer hardware
Laptops,Computers,Portable computers
Desktops,Computers,Desktop computers
Phones,Electronics,Mobile phones and accessories
Clothing,,Apparel and garments
Shirts,Clothing,All types of shirts
Pants,Clothing,All types of pants

Note that the top-level categories (Electronics, Clothing) have an empty Parent Category field, while subcategories reference their parent by name.

Important: AccuArk processes categories in the order they appear in the CSV. For hierarchical imports, list parent categories before their children. In the example above, "Electronics" appears before "Computers", and "Computers" appears before "Laptops". This ensures each parent exists by the time its children are processed.

Common Issues

"Parent category not found" Error

The parent category name in your CSV does not match any existing category. This can happen if the parent category appears later in the file than its children. Reorder your CSV so that parent categories come first, or run the import in two passes — first the top-level categories, then the subcategories.

Duplicate Category Names

Because the upsert matches on category name, all category names should be unique. If your CSV contains two rows with the same category name, the second row will overwrite the first.

Tips

• Import categories before items — Set up your full category structure before importing inventory. This ensures that every item can be correctly assigned to a category during the inventory import.
• Order matters for hierarchy — List parent categories before their children in the CSV file. This guarantees that the parent exists when the child row is processed.
• Keep names unique — Each category name should be unique across your entire category structure. Avoid using the same name for categories at different levels (e.g., do not name both a top-level and a sub-level category "Accessories").
• Use descriptions — Adding descriptions to your categories helps other users understand what each category is for, especially in larger product catalogs.
• Reorganize with re-import — To move a category under a different parent, update the Parent Category value in your spreadsheet and re-import. The upsert mechanism updates the existing category with the new parent assignment.