Last updated: Dec 10, 2025, 10:25 AM
The retail import template allows you to set up your item library by adding an entire list of items all at once. This method is best if you have an export available from a prior POS, or if you’re building up a list of inventory items. The template can also be used after go-live to add more items to your library in bulk.
For more information on the other ways to add items (selecting existing menu(s) or starting a new item library), check out this Toast Central article: Toast Retail: Set up Your Item Library.
If you’re working with an Onboarding Consultant (OC), send them an email with your inventory spreadsheet or POS export file for help with formatting the import template.
Ready to get started? Begin by selecting one of the links below.
Note: If you don't have access to Excel, you can open these files using Google Sheets.
To build your Toast Retail import template, you'll need to fill out all of the information you have about your items. The Template tab of the spreadsheet is where you’ll add your inventory information. Below is a description of the fields that are included in the template.
Notes:
You can also review the Example tab of the spreadsheet to see a few items that are fully filled out.
| Column name | Description | Required? |
| name | The item name is what you’ll see in reports, and what your guest will see on their receipt. | Required for all items |
| optional (variation) | You’ll use this column to capture any items that come in different variations. “Size” is a common variation - you can look at the Example tab of the spreadsheet to see what this would look like. Basically, you’ll have the same item name listed on several different rows of your template, with each row representing a different variation (e.g. S/M/L/XL if you’re adding a size variation).
To add more variation types, you can add more columns to the right or left and name it appropriately (e.g. color (variation)).
Items can have more than one variation, for example, a t-shirt that is sold in different sizes and different colors. The total number of variations supported for an item is 256. Each variation option set (e.g. size) is limited to 25 values. | Recommended for items sold in different variations |
| pos name | A shortened name that helps staff easily ID items on the POS. | Optional |
| description | The item description will appear on your online ordering site and kiosks. | Optional |
| category group | The first level of organization for your retail items (e.g. Clothing).
| Required for all items. |
If you’re selling pre-weighed items, using a produce scale, or using a scale attached to the POS, use these configurations:
If you're using a deli scale that prints barcodes, use these configurations:
Check out this video overview for instructions:
With your template complete, you're ready to import items into Toast Retail.
If you’re working with an Onboarding Consultant, email your Excel file or Google Sheets link to them for review. If you’re using Google Sheets, make sure you update the sharing settings to Anyone with the link can edit.
If you’re importing items to Toast Retail yourself, follow the steps below.
Note: Importing a Toast Retail template using the steps below will always create new items -- it will not update items that have already been imported into Toast. For that reason, you should always use a new template (without the existing items) if you have new items to add to Toast Retail.
Yes, if you don't have barcodes ready when you're creating your Toast Retail template, you can add a barcode to the items later (after you’ve imported your other item data). The quickest way to do this is to connect a barcode scanner to your computer (desktop/laptop), open the item details page and click into the Barcode field, and then scan the physical barcode. Even if you have a significant number of barcodes to add, using the scanning feature may be more efficient than importing the template, because the Toast Retail smart scan feature may find matches and populate some item data for you.
As a reminder, you can also use a scanner to add barcodes directly into the Toast Retail template. Scanning a barcode is always quicker and more accurate than manually typing it in.
Yes, there are a couple of options for making bulk updates to your Retail item library:
For detailed instructions on both of these methods, see the Bulk Update Items section of this Toast Central article, .
When importing items with variations, all of the variants need to have the same value for the following columns: name, description, category group, category, subcategory, brand, and custom attribute. Once you've confirmed that these columns match for each relevant item, continue with your import.
The "similar value" warning may indicate that you've misspelled something in the template, which could cause you to create separate versions of the same thing. For example, if you see "Brand: similar value already exists", that could mean there are two brand names with very similar spellings and the system is suggesting that you review the values before importing. Remember, a warning message will not prevent you from completing your Toast Retail import.
If you see a message that says you are missing header names on your Toast Retail template, try the following steps:
| category | The second level of organization for your retail items (e.g. Women’s Clothing). This is useful for separating items into different groups for ease of reporting or ease of use on the POS.
| Required for all items. |
| subcategory | An optional third level of organization for your retail items.
Note: Keep in mind that if you try to add more than 1,500 items to the same subcategory, the subcategory will automatically be split into multiple subcategories. | Optional |
| price | A single, positive number (not a price range, or text as a price) that indicates what your guests will pay for the item. | Required for all items except items with a price composed embedded barcode. |
| cost | The cost of the item (what you pay your suppliers for the item). | Necessary for tracking margins or COGS. |
| barcode | Note: If you copy and paste barcodes into this template, pay special attention to the barcodes to ensure that none of the leading zeros have gone missing. Not all barcodes start with zero, but if your spreadsheet auto-detects and removes a zero from the front of a barcode, it will not work properly after import.
Scannable barcode number.
| Required for items that will be tracked or sold via barcode scanning. |
| plu | Product look-up (PLU) codes are item numbers that can be helpful to manually search for items on your POS screen. | Optional |
| brand | The name of the company that produced the item.
You can only add one brand per item. If you have two items with the same name from different brands, the item should appear as separate rows on your template. | Optional |
| supplier | Adding the supplier of an item enables you to create purchase orders in Toast Retail. | Required if you want to add supplier item id. |
| supplier item id | Used to identify the item according to a product code provided by your suppliers. | Optional |
| selling strategy | The selling strategy determines if an item will be sold individually (EACH), or by weight. If you’re selling weighed items, review this section of this article for best practices. | Required for some items sold by weight.
See instructions here. |
| embedded amount type | PRICE COMPOSED or WEIGHT. See instructions here. |
| unit of measure | Units that an item is measured in (LB, OZ, KG, or G). |
| prompt for quantity | This setting tells the register whether the cashier will enter a specific quantity when the item is sold.
Note: If your guests often purchase large quantities of an item (even if it’s not sold by weight), you may want to set this field as TRUE. |
| inventory quantity | Current amount of inventory on hand.
Note: We generally discourage entering inventory quantity if your counts will change prior to going live with Toast. | Optional |
| receiving units | If your business purchases items in cases or other groupings of inventory, you can configure your receiving units on the item level to make updating your stock easy and quick.
| Optional |
| receiving unit quantities | This is where you can enter the quantity of items that come in a single receiving unit that you get from a supplier. If there are multiple unit quantities for an item, they should be listed in the same order as the receiving units were added, separated by semi-colons with no spaces (e.g. 12;128). | Optional |
| image URL | A public-facing URL to the image for this item (a URL that anyone can access without needing an account or credentials). | Optional |
| custom attribute (select) | Custom attributes (select, text, or number) allow you to capture additional information for more flexible item searching and reporting. For example, you might choose to add the region that wine comes from as a custom attribute.
Note: Custom attributes will not import unless they are created in Toast Web first. To learn more about how to configure custom attributes, check out the Custom Attributes section of this Toast Central article, Optimize Toast Retail.
You can make multiple copies of this column if you’re using different custom attributes across your item library.
| Optional
|
| custom attribute (text) |
| custom attribute (number) |