How to Resolve and Prevent Duplicates with Bulk Upload

Navigate to Stock and make sure you've created your first warehouse. You'll need one to map your materials to.

Then go to Settings → Bulk Upload.

On the Add New tab you have two options:

Choose your file, then select the tab within that file you want to import from.

Ply will show you its own column names alongside a dropdown for each, so you can match them to the columns in your spreadsheet.

For example, clicking into the dropdown for Name, you'd select "Item Name" if that's what your file calls it. Ply then shows you a preview of that column's data so you can confirm you picked the right one.

A few things to know here:

Mapping the item number column matters for duplicate detection. It's the cleanest way to tell two similar-looking materials apart.

Once everything is mapped, click Next.

Ply now scans your file and flags any problems. Rows with issues are marked in red. Use the Show only errors filter at the top to see just the flagged rows.

Duplicates inside your own file are one of the most common flags here - the same material entered twice, often with slightly different information on each row.

To resolve:

💡 When the duplicate rows differ, keep the one with the item number filled in. That's the more complete record, and it's what makes the material identifiable later.

Once you've cleared the errors, view the full upload to confirm nothing else is flagged.

Blank fields appear in a light red shade, this isn't an error, just a prompt that you can fill them in if you want. You can type directly into the field here. Once filled, it turns green.

Click Show modifications to see a summary of every change you've made to the spreadsheet in this view.

This is the second check, and it's the one that keeps your catalog clean over time.

If your upload contains materials that already exist in your catalog, Ply shows you a handling duplications screen listing them out. Instead of creating a second copy of each, you can select all and remove them from the upload, then continue with just the genuinely new materials.

💡 If your catalog is empty (like on a first-time import) this screen is skipped entirely, since there's nothing to compare against.

The last step is deciding where the materials land:

Select your warehouse if you're using one, then confirm the import.

Once the import completes:

Every subsequent upload runs through both duplicate checks automatically, so you can keep adding to your catalog without worrying about creating copies of what's already there.