Switching a working hotel warehouse to new software is daunting for one reason: you already have stock, and you can't afford a day where nobody knows what's on the shelf. Livion's setup import exists to make that first day boring — you bring your existing inventory in as it stands, and start operating.

The operational problem

Migrations go wrong in predictable ways:

Opening balances are re-keyed by hand, so day one starts with a warehouse that already disagrees with the shelf.
Categories, suppliers and departments are set up piecemeal, and items land with no home.
Bad rows are discovered after import, when there is no clean way to start over.

What Livion does instead

Warehouse setup import brings your legacy inventory in from a CSV in one guided flow. You upload the file, map its columns to Livion's fields, preview the blockers, warnings and fallbacks before anything is written, and then start the import. From that single file Livion can create your categories, suppliers, departments, warehouse items and department inventory, and lay down opening stock and the stock transactions behind it — so your first movements are grounded in real starting balances. You can also download the current row-based inventory as a CSV at any time.

Each row needs the essentials to be placed correctly: an item name, a quantity and a location. Get those right and the import can build the rest of the structure around them.

Import once — this door closes

Setup import is only available before any warehouse or department inventory exists. Once stock is in the system the flow locks, only one import session runs at a time, and resetting to import again requires support. Treat the preview as your last checkpoint: fix the CSV until the preview is clean, then import.

Why it matters

A clean import is the difference between a launch and a mess. Bring your opening balances in once, correctly, and every figure Livion produces afterwards — stock movements, consumption, reorder points — is anchored to reality from day one. And because the catalogue is created as part of the same step, it's worth pairing the import with the habits in Keep your hotel warehouse catalogue accurate so the structure you land with stays clean.

Hotel operations, in your inbox

Occasional, practical articles on running hotel operations with Livion. No spam.