CSV templates — from Excel and the notebook to a system in a week.
Two small files with column headers Dashing understands in Arabic or English. Open a template in Excel or Google Sheets, paste your products and customers, save as CSV, then import from the inventory or customers screen — with a preview and dry run first, and one bad row never stops the whole file.
Product list
sku · name · sale_price · cost_price · min stock · barcode
SKU, name and sale price are required; the rest optional. Quantities are entered after import with one stock count, so they are booked as an opening balance.
Customer list
name · phone · city
Name is required. Even a file with a single column of names imports.
The columns Dashing understands
Headers need not match literally: "sku", "code" or الرمز are all understood, as are "name" or اسم الصنف, and "price" or سعر البيع. If your customer file is just one column of names with no header, it imports as is. Numbers are read in Western and Arabic-Indic digits.
Moving in a week
Day one: products from Excel through the template, with a dry run before committing; the quantity column becomes opening stock at the cost you wrote. Day two: customers with their names and phones — old debts are entered by hand or stay in the notebook until collected. Day three: a quick count of whatever you were unsure of. From day four: sell from the cashier and the ledger writes itself.
Common questions
Excel garbles Arabic when saving as CSV — what do I do?
Choose "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)" rather than plain "CSV" when saving. The templates here are already in that format, so open, fill and save with the same option. Google Sheets saves UTF-8 automatically.
Does importing duplicate existing products?
No. The import creates new products only: a row whose SKU already exists is rejected and listed in the errors while the rest import. Run a dry run first to see what would be created or rejected before anything is written.