Costs Auto Import - Create a Google Sheet Cost File and Publish the URL

Keeping your costs up to date with A2X can be time-consuming. Each time a cost is added, deleted, or changed, it is best practice to update the changes in A2X to ensure the cost entry to your accounting system is as accurate as possible.

A great way to save time is to create a Google Sheet with the cost data and share this sheet with all people in your organization who are responsible for keeping cost of goods sold up to date.

Please follow these instructions step by step to link your sheet. Each step is important for the data to be processed correctly by A2X.

Step 1: Create a Google Sheet

Click HERE to navigate to Google Sheets, then click the 'Go to Sheets Button'.

Step 2: Set up your Google sheet

Your Google sheet must have two columns only with 'sku' as the header name in cell A1 and 'cost' as the header name in cell B1. The header names must be in lower case, as this is case sensitive.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your Google sheet is not set up as outlined above, our system will detect this and notify you with an error message to try again.

Step 3: Enter or update your cost information

If this is the first time you are preparing your cost sheet, you may wish to open or download your cost information from your inventory system. Depending on your internal workflows, this information may be taken from another spreadsheet, an inventory program, Shopify, Amazon or another system. This information must be copied and pasted into this Google Sheet. Please refer to the following screen shot for an example of how this data will be populated.

If you have already uploaded your Google Sheet URL in A2X previously, all you need to do is change the cost, or add additional rows for new SKUs.

Step 4: Create the shareable URL

When you have prepared the cost data for upload to A2X, you will need to create the URL to copy and paste to A2X. This step needs to be completed only once, and the URL will stay the same going forward.

Click File in the menu bar | Share | Publish to Web

Step 5: Publish to the web

Select 'Entire Document' and drop down the box that displays Web Page and change to Comma-separated Values (.csv).

Please note these steps are very important, otherwise the auto import process will not work.

Click Publish and then OK

Please note this URL is viewable and editable by any person that has the URL, so please consider your organization's security policies before proceeding.

Step 6: Copy the URL

Copy the URL shown in the grey highlighted box below to your clipboard (you can do this by right clicking and choosing Copy, or pressing Ctrl + C)

Step 7: Paste the URL and click the Import Cost File button

Select your Costs Currency, paste the URL, then click the Upload button.

This links your Google sheet to A2X.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your Google sheet is not set up as outlined in this guide, our system will detect this and notify you with an error message to try again. If you receive an error message, please confirm the following:

Step 8: Click the Sync from Google Sheets button (or wait for auto import - daily 1am UTC)

Click the Sync from Google Sheets button for an immediate import.

From there, the auto import will run each day at 1am UTC and any changes to your linked Google sheet will be reflected on the Manage Costs tab and an updated row will appear in the Cost History table. Please note with the auto import, an updated row will appear in the Cost History table only if there have been changes to your Google sheet since the last import.

You can click the Import Now button at any time to import your Google sheet immediately (or wait for the daily auto import).

To link a different Google sheet, follow the steps outlined earlier in this guide and paste the new link in the 'URL for Cost Import' field then click the Update Cost Import button. Next, click the Sync from Google Sheets button for an immediate import (or wait for the daily auto import at 1am UTC).

If you experience any issues or need assistance, please contact our Customer Success Team via the blue chat icon at the bottom right of your A2X screen or contact@a2xaccounting.com.

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