Importing purchase invoices and sales invoices

SOLVED

Hi,

I need to export purchase and sales invoices from a software we have developed and transfer them into Sage 50.  I have followed instructions for using the .imp files to transfer the information and this part is working great up until we have to import it into Sage 50.

Our problem is not the format of the file but the way that Sage 50 imports the file.  For every invoice, there's confirmation window for the vender/customer and for every detail lines.  There is always at least 2 lines of details so that means that if my customer is importing 50 invoices, he has to confirm information at least 150 times.

We've called Sage and they've told us that there is no solution to this.  I've found, in the documentation, a way to workaround this and it is to go to the vendor/customer file and, into the Import/Export tab, to check "This customer uses my item numbers on orders" or to manually match every items number.  It doesn't make sense to handle this on the vendor/customer side because the information is actually coming from and external system that tries to tie with Sage 50.

Is there any other alternatives to the .imp files?  I've noticed that Sage 50 uses a MySQL backend but it doesn't feel right to me to push and update information directly into the backend.

Hope somebody has a good workaround for this.

Thanks,

Denis.

  • 0
    verified answer

    Hi Denis,

    Sage has a free SDK available that should be capable of trapping any alerts when transferring data into the program.   Also it would likely be possible to build an import system that would work in multi-user mode.

    I wouldn't start stuffing invoices into Sage 50 through an ODBC link, there are some strange nuances and cases that you would have to program for, and there's a possibility of corrupting the data.  

    There are also some third party utilities that perform data import with less... botheration than what is possible with the built-in import functions in Sage 50.  It's theoretically possible to find them through Sage's website, although in a timed contest to find one, my money would be on anyone using Google or Bing.

    The built-in ability to import a purchase invoice appears to have been implemented by the Simply Accounting people in order to provide an easy way to accept an invoice from a vendor who used Simply Accounting - when emailing out an invoice, the .IMP file is generated and attached to the outgoing sales invoice.

    The built-in ability to import a Sales invoice... works better than typing, but can't accept text into the description field, and doesn't / can't trap alert messages.

    I hope that helps, please post back.

    Randy

  • 0
    verified answer

    Hi Denis,

    If you're after a quite straight forward process you might like to look at the Sage Importer.

    At Receipt Bank we've worked with Sage 50 users through using this thirdparty tool; Sage Importer (www.import-web-orders.com) This product allows you to send over purchase invoices from our product to Sage 50 via a CSV or XLS file. I would think that if you can export your information from your proprietary software into a CSV file, the sage importer product also would allow you to send purchase information on mass.

    Good luck with the project.

    Let us know how you get on.

    Steve

    (Data Conversion Enthusiast)

  • 0

    Denis

    I'd say Sage is wrong...if you are importing items with item codes that exist in your file already.  If so, then have you tried going to the Customer's Ledger, Import/Export tab and turning on "This customer uses my item numbers on orders?

  • 0 in reply to Receipts_Steve

    Steve,

    I'm not completely sure you are aware that you are in a Canadian Sage software forum.  Are you telling us that the product you are referring to will support products other than Sage 50 Accounts?  If so, will it import the proper descriptions from the csv file?

  • 0

    Hi,

    Thanks to everyone for all the replies.  I think that investing in a third party solution will be the most cost effective solution.  Thanks to Receipts_Steve for the suggestion, I will take a look at it and also look at others on the Sage 50 website.  I did try the "This customer uses my item numbers on orders" checkbox but I'm sure that they will forget to check the box when creating a new customer and it seems like it won't work for US customers.  Our customer is in Canada but they are dealing with both Canadian and US cutomers.

  • 0 in reply to denis.dupere
    SUGGESTED

    Hi Denis,

    If you are looking for cost effective solution from Sage business partner, please check

    Please check www.swagsys.com, or drop me a line. The import program can import purchase invoices and sales invoices, plus other transactions into Sage50 Canadian (former simply accounting) as well Sage50-US (Peachtree)

    Thanks,

  • 0 in reply to denis.dupere

    Sage sells three different "Sage 50" products that have different codebases.  'Sage 50' is more of a market classification, like 'Pickup truck'. 

    UK Sage 'Line 50' became............... Sage 50

    US Peachtree became..................... Sage 50

    CA Simply Accounting became........ Sage 50

    They all have different SDKs, menu options, database back ends, and APIs. 

    denis.dupere said:
    and it seems like it won't work for US customers

    Keeps asking for an exchange rate?

  • 0 in reply to RandyW

    Randy,

    Open the customer ledger for a US currency customer and have a look at the Import/Export tab.

    RandyW said:
    and it seems like it won't work for US customers

    Keeps asking for an exchange rate?[/quote]

    Won't allow the import.