What is a CIF catalog?

What a CIF file is

CIF, the Catalog Interchange Format, is the flat-file catalog format of SAP Ariba. A CIF file has three parts: a header with attributes for the whole file, a body with one item per line, and a trailer. The file name ends in .cif, and SAP recommends the same file name for every version of a catalog.

A supplier uses it in two ways:

• as a static catalog: every item with its price and unit, loaded into the buyer's procurement system and searched there;
• as a PunchOut index: items without a binding price that point to your store, so a click in the buyer's search opens your product page.

The rules below are from SAP's Customer Catalog Format Reference for SAP Business Network, checked on October 3, 2026.

The header

The first line declares the version. Every line after it is a key and a value, KEY: value, one per line, in any order. Keys are case-insensitive and values are case-sensitive. SAP silently ignores keys it does not know.

Two defaults matter. A file without CHARSET is read as Windows Latin-1, so a UTF-8 "é" shows as two wrong characters. A file without UNUOM: TRUE is read with ANSI units, while SAP notes that most buying organizations use the UN codes.

The 12 fixed fields

Every row starts with 12 fields in a fixed order. Empty fields still need their commas. Optional fields follow after the twelfth, in the order FIELDNAMES declares them.

The description limit is in bytes underneath. SAP's own example: Japanese characters take 3 bytes each in UTF-8, so a Japanese description stops at 666 characters. An English description with 30 accented characters, each 2 bytes, at 980 characters in total is 950 + 30 x 2 = 1,010 bytes, well inside.

Writing the rows

The body is CSV with strict rules. Each line is one item; blank lines are not allowed; a line return ends the item even inside quotes. A comma means "next field", so any text with a comma is quoted, and a quote inside quoted text is doubled. Prices take a point or a quoted comma as decimal separator, no thousands separator and no currency symbol.

A catalog of item 10482 for one customer, in full:

CIF_I_V3.0
CHARSET: UTF-8
LOADMODE: F
CODEFORMAT: UNSPSC
CURRENCY: USD
SUPPLIERID_DOMAIN: NETWORKID
UNUOM: TRUE
ITEMCOUNT: 2
TIMESTAMP: 2026-10-03 09:00:00
FIELDNAMES: Supplier ID, Supplier Part ID, Manufacturer Part ID, Item Description, SPSC Code, Unit Price, Unit of Measure, Lead Time, Manufacturer Name, Supplier URL, Manufacturer URL, Market Price
DATA
AN01000000001,10482,,"Duplex receptacle 20 A, white, tamper resistant",39121406,9.60,EA,3,,,,12.50
AN01000000001,10483,,"Duplex receptacle 20 A, ivory, tamper resistant",39121406,9.60,EA,3,,,,12.50
ENDOFDATA

The prices are the contract price of that customer, 9.60, with the list price of 12.50 as Market Price. A catalog belongs to one customer; a second customer with its own prices gets its own file.

Full and incremental loads

LOADMODE: F replaces the whole catalog. LOADMODE: I sends only changes: a row whose item ID already exists is an update, a new one is an addition, and a row with T in a Delete column removes the item. In a full load, delete rows generate errors.

The arithmetic for a customer catalog of 4,000 items, in a month where 40 prices change and 12 items are discontinued:

• full load: 4,000 - 12 = 3,988 rows, ITEMCOUNT: 3988
• incremental load: 40 + 12 = 52 rows, ITEMCOUNT: 52, of which 12 carry Delete = T

SAP Business Network takes CIF files up to 200 MB. A larger catalog is split: the first file with LOADMODE: F, the others with LOADMODE: I, each uploaded and published in turn.

A PunchOut index in CIF

A PunchOut index uses the same format with two more columns declared in FIELDNAMES: PunchOut Enabled set to TRUE, and PunchOutLevel with store, aisle, shelf or product. Unit Price and Unit of Measure stay empty, because the price comes from your store in the session. SAP's Level 2 table asks for a Supplier URL on every index item; a dummy URL is enough for compatibility with Ariba Buyer 8.x.

FIELDNAMES: Supplier ID, Supplier Part ID, Manufacturer Part ID, Item Description, SPSC Code, Unit Price, Unit of Measure, Lead Time, Manufacturer Name, Supplier URL, Manufacturer URL, Market Price, PunchOut Enabled, PunchOutLevel
DATA
AN01000000001,10482,,"Duplex receptacle 20 A, white, tamper resistant",39121406,,,,,https://store.example.com/punchout,,,TRUE,product
ENDOFDATA

PunchOutLevel is read only by SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing. For store, aisle and shelf items the buyer's search shows only the first 50 characters of the description.

Where CIF files fail

For buyers without their own content management system, SAP Business Network validates the file before it publishes it. For buyers with one, the buyer's system validates it and reports back as "Validation Errors Found by Customer".

A buyer can relax some semantic checks, such as UNSPSC codes, units or zero prices. The syntax checks always apply.

What this means for your integration

A CIF catalog is an export of your item and price data per customer, and the failures above come from data that is fine in the ERP and wrong in CIF: a decimal comma, a code with dots, a line break in a description, a unit called "pcs". The integration writes the file from the ERP and the store, applies these rules per field, counts the rows, and checks lengths, units and codes before upload, so a rejected catalog is caught on our side.

When the catalog is a PunchOut index, the same export feeds the session that follows: the part numbers in the index have to open product pages in your store. How the index and the session work together is on Level 2 PunchOut, and the whole PunchOut flow on the PunchOut hub. How a file catalog compares with a live store is on PunchOut vs hosted catalog.