diff --git a/src/caosadvancedtools/cfood.py b/src/caosadvancedtools/cfood.py
index d2e30de5a99faa1d4c9f6d4753f656ede49b0c46..0eb826321d9889c6d8fcc09f6208bb56b9d3066e 100644
--- a/src/caosadvancedtools/cfood.py
+++ b/src/caosadvancedtools/cfood.py
@@ -572,6 +572,7 @@ def assure_parents_are(entity, parents, to_be_updated=None,
     the new parents and the old ones are discarded.
 
     Note that parent matching occurs based on names.
+    If a parent does not have a name, a ValueError is raised.
 
     If the list to_be_updated is supplied, the entity is added to
     the list in order to indicate, that the entity `entity` should be updated.
@@ -586,7 +587,7 @@ def assure_parents_are(entity, parents, to_be_updated=None,
     for i, e in enumerate(parents):
         if isinstance(e, db.Entity):
             if e.name is None:
-                raise Exception("Entity should have name")
+                raise ValueError("Entity should have name")
         else:
             parents[i] = db.Entity(name=e)
 
diff --git a/src/caosadvancedtools/models/parser.py b/src/caosadvancedtools/models/parser.py
index b97e507e2c1577fd8d56c7aca5f0adc625ae1b31..52552bd389bf5abfcb4d96d25456b12593ee16c8 100644
--- a/src/caosadvancedtools/models/parser.py
+++ b/src/caosadvancedtools/models/parser.py
@@ -286,6 +286,12 @@ debug : bool, optional
         existing_model : dict, optional
           An existing model to which the created model shall be added.
 
+        Raises
+        ------
+        ValueError
+          If model_dict is not a dict, model_dict["extern"] contains an
+          unknown entry, or there is an unknown entry in model_dict.
+
         Returns
         -------
         out : data_model.DataModel
@@ -320,7 +326,7 @@ debug : bool, optional
                         f"FIND {role} WITH name=\"{name}\"", unique=True)
                     break
             else:
-                raise Exception("Did not find {}".format(name))
+                raise ValueError("Did not find {}".format(name))
 
         ymlmodel.pop("extern")