Upload an old quote as a PDF (AI import)

Got quotes from another program or from Word and don’t want to retype them? Upload the quote as a PDF: the AI reads it and suggests the customer, the event, the line items and new products for your inventory. Nothing is saved until you have reviewed and confirmed the extracted data.

The video walks you through the whole path, from the upload to the finished draft quote inside the event.

Play video3:12

You’ll find the individual steps written out below as well.

Where to upload a quote

There are two places:

• When you first set up your workspace: During onboarding, Univents offers the step Upload an offer. Use Choose file to upload your PDF, or skip the step with Continue without upload. Here Univents also carries the colours from your quote over into your default template for quotes and invoices, as long as you haven’t set your own colours there yet. After you confirm, the onboarding AI turns it straight into your first quote.
• Day to day: Open Events in the sidebar and click Import offer in the top right. In the Upload offer PDF window, pick the file with Choose PDF.

The import accepts PDF files up to 10 MB. Photos and Word files are not accepted — save the quote as a PDF first.

What the AI picks up

While Reading offer … is shown, Univents reads the PDF. This can take a moment. It picks up:

• Customer — name and, if present, email address.
• Event — title, date and number of guests, as far as they appear in the quote.
• Line items — name, quantity, unit, price and VAT of each line, plus a suggestion for a matching product category.
• Run-of-show — if the quote contains a schedule with times, it is picked up too.

If Univents can’t find a quote in the file, you’ll see Couldn't detect an offer. Click Try again for another attempt. If you upload a PDF that has already been imported, Univents shows This PDF was already imported and creates nothing twice.

Review the extracted data

Next, the Review extracted data window opens. Nothing has been saved at this point.

1. Check Customer, Email, Event title and Event date at the top. If something is missing from the PDF, such as the email address, add it here.
2. Under Prices in the PDF are, choose whether the prices in the quote are Gross (incl. VAT) or Net (excl. VAT). If Univents couldn’t tell for sure, it shows Not reliably detected — please check. At the bottom you’ll see Total net and Total gross — compare them with the total on your PDF.
3. Check every row under Line items: Name, Qty, Unit, price and VAT %. Below a row, Source in PDF: shows the passage in the quote the value came from.
4. Only when importing via Import offer: under Inventory you can see how many products and categories would be created, and Show names lists them. The checkbox Create new products and categories in the inventory is ticked by default. If you untick it, your inventory stays unchanged: line items without a matching product are added to the quote as free-text lines. During onboarding, new products are always created.
5. Only when importing via Import offer: under Also create? you can tick Shifts, Schedule and Tasks (more on this below).
6. Tick Prices & VAT verified and click Confirm & create.

What gets created after you confirm

Univents now creates:

• Customer — if one of your contacts already has the same email address, that contact is used; otherwise a new one is created.
• Event — with the title, date and guest count from the quote, tagged “pdf-import”. The import doesn’t carry over an address; add it in the event afterwards.
• Products — line items that already exist in your inventory under the same name are linked to that product, including existing recipes. Their prices and details in the inventory are never overwritten, and the quote uses the price from your inventory. All other line items are created as new products if the inventory checkbox is ticked.
• Draft quote — a regular Univents quote in the event’s Documents tab, with the customer, the event and all line items. The line items also appear in the Bookings tab.

When you import via Import offer, you land straight in the new event. Check the draft quote there before you send it — especially the prices of products that were already in your inventory.

Shifts, schedule and tasks

When importing via Import offer, the AI can also prepare the planning:

• Schedule — if the PDF contains a run-of-show, the window shows a preview with Run-of-show detected in the PDF — will be imported. If there is none, you’ll see No run-of-show in the PDF — AI will draft one. To take over the run-of-show from the PDF, the event needs a date; without one, Univents reports No start date — run-of-show not imported.
• Shifts and Tasks — the AI derives them from the quote’s line items and your templates, for example service, kitchen or cloakroom shifts and tasks such as staff scheduling.

These are created in the background once the event exists. The first shifts and tasks often appear in the Shifts and Tasks tabs after a short while; reload the page if nothing shows up yet. They are AI suggestions — adjust them before you assign staff.

What the import costs

• During onboarding the import is free. Each workspace can run up to three imports per day; after that you’ll see Daily limit reached — available again tomorrow.
• Day to day, reading the PDF uses your AI credits, billed by the actual effort for that specific PDF. Credits are only deducted after a successful read — a failed attempt or a PDF you upload twice costs nothing. Shifts, schedule and tasks use additional credits by effort, only if you tick them.

If your credits are used up, you’ll see Not enough AI credits for this import. How to top up and see your usage is covered in AI credit and usage.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import several quotes at once? No, the import takes one PDF per run. For many events, products or contacts from a spreadsheet, use the Excel import.

What happens if I cancel in the review window? Then nothing is created. When importing via Import offer, the read has still been deducted from your AI credits.

Are my existing products changed? No. Existing products are only linked; their prices and details stay as they are.

Is the layout of my old quote recreated? No. The quote appears in your Univents template. How to design it is covered in How do I create layouts for financial documents?.

I’m moving over completely from another system. Then also read Moving from your previous system — it explains which data is carried over automatically when you switch.