Your colleague is vastly mistaken.  At Acumen we provide our customers an entire suite of Excel based import tools for every module.

Thanks for the quick response! How much are these tools?

Not sure, I'm in IT, not marketing.  If you contact our office in Clermont, FL, one of the account managers can give the details.

Can you answer me some questions about creating an Excel worksheet that transforms Excel entries into AccPac import formats?

What are the questions?

1. Can I leave the batch number empty? What else could be left empty in the import Excel file?

2. Can I keep the formulas in the import version Excel file?

3. Can I have other unneeded tabs in the import version Excel file?

4. How much does the format of the data matter? I noticed the import Excel file seems to only work if the batch number, entry number, line number and so on are kept in a text format.

1. No.  What columns can be left empty depends on the file.

2. Yes

3. Yes

4. Be consistent.  All must be string, or all must be integer.

Further to what Jay said on #1:   Batch is almost always a required column, but the Import will override what you enter here. For that reason, I usually fill with all zeros or all 1’s.  If you leave other columns blank, you risk importing a blank value over a default value, or having the import fail altogether.  It’s better to omit columns from the import if you don’t want to bother with them.  To determine which columns you can do this with, rename the field name so the import will ignore it.  If import fails on that field, restore the original name; otherwise you can delete that column.  Most Sage screens require only a handful of fields out of the hundreds that may be exported, but it takes some experimentation to figure out what works for your situation, including reviewing the imported records to be sure everything is the way you intended.