We’ve completely redesigned the Import/Export Utility in the upcoming release of SpendMap to make it even faster and easier to get information in and out of the system.
Check out our news announcement for all the details.
integration
Importing Items (parts, products) into your Free Purchase Order Software
Abdul needs to get 9,000 items/parts/products into the free version of SpendMap and he isn’t about to type all that information in manually…
“We have about 9000 products. Do we have option to upload products in bulk? Because if I add one by one it will take months to finish this task.”
For sure, manually typing in 9,000 items would take way too long!
You can import your items into SpendMap’s Item Master File to save all that data entry. It’s a two-step process as follows…
1) First you need to set up an Import Configuration to tell SpendMap where the specific pieces of information (fields) are in your Excel spreadsheet, TXT or CSV file. Here’s the menu path…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Configure import file layout
2) Then, to actually run the import utility and bring in all your items, use this…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Import into Item Master File
When you run the import utility (#2 above), it will prompt you to select the Import Configuration that you set up in #1 above, and then you will select your file to import.
But before you get started, may I suggest that you review the following section of the Online Help in SpendMap…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Integration Tools > Overview and General Information
Click the “YouTube” icon at the top of that Help section, to watch a video tutorial on importing data into SpendMap (the video actually uses importing of items in its examples).
Also, as you will see during the video tutorial, in the Evaluation Copy of SpendMap (the one that comes preloaded with sample data), we included a sample Excel spreadsheet with a few sample items to import, and there is an Import Configuration already set up to match that spreadsheet. So give it a try in your Eval Copy first, to see how it works, before actually importing your items into your Live Copy of SpendMap.
Finally, here are a few other blog posts related to importing data.
Hope that helps.
-FP
“Add” vs. “Replace” when importing data into your Free Purchase Order Software
Peter works at a hotel/resort in Florida and had a great question about importing data into SpendMap…
“When I import my items, it just keeps adding the new items to the items that are already in the system. Is there any way to start over and replace everything with the next list of imported items?”
Yes, by default all Master File imports in SpendMap will add to what is already in the Master File. This is true not only of brand new items, but also new or changed fields for a particular item. So, for example, you can import the same items over and over again, perhaps to update pricing or other details on an ongoing basis.
But if you’d like to start over, just enable the setting “Allow purging of master files when importing“, in the [Permissions] folder of the User Master File, and then you will see the following prompt the next time you run any of the Master File imports…
3 Ways to Export Data from you Free Purchase Order Software
Melonie wants to give the Free Version of SpendMap a try but she doesn’t know what the future may hold for her startup company…
“I ran across your free procurement system and I am wondering how easy it is to get the data back out of the system if the company decides to change systems down the road. Is it possible to easily dump the data into excel and switch systems?”
Sure thing Melonie. We hope you stick with us but you can get all your information out of SpendMap anytime you want. You can export your data to Excel and other types of files too (e.g. ASCII, TXT, CSV).
First off, any of the reports in SpendMap can be exported to Excel. Think Purchase Order history, department spend history, item history, etc…
There are also many dedicated export utilities for common things like Master File data (suppliers, items, users, account codes, etc.). Check out the options under the Utility > Data Interfaces section of each module.
Finally, in the unlikely event that you need something that isn’t included in the reports or dedicated exports, you can get at anything else using Utility > Data Interfaces > Export Any Table.
Growing with SpendMap
Please also keep in mind that, as your company grows, SpendMap can grow along with you.
As your needs expand, you can upgrade from the Free Version of SpendMap to our paid/commercial version at any time to get access to additional modules/functionality, more advanced technology (e.g. web-based, mobile support, etc.), and we have a full line of Professional Services that larger companies will appreciate, like training and implementation consulting, custom programming, and so on.
When you upgrade from the Free Version to our paid/commercial version, we can bring all your information forward, including all your Purchase Order and other history, master files, configuration settings, etc.
Options for exporting data from your free Purchase Order Software
You may have noticed that there is more than one way to export items, suppliers, PO history and other data out of the Free Version of SpendMap. I am referring to the “Export Any Table” utility versus the “dedicated” export utilities under UTILITY > DATA INTERFACES in each module…
While you could use Export Any Table to export the same data that is available via the dedicated export utilities, the dedicated exports provide some additional features that might come in handy if you’re going to be doing this on a regular basis, such as…
- The dedicated exports allow you to set up “export templates”, so that you don’t have to manually select the fields that you want to export each time.
- When configuring the dedicated exports, you can specify the location/position of each field in the export file. While Export Any Table does allow you to select the fields that you want to export, you cannot specify, for example, the target column in the Excel file.
- You can specify the format of date fields (e.g. MM/DD/YY vs. YY-MM-DD) if the other system that will be importing the data uses a different format than you use in SpendMap.
- You can specify a default value for fields that might be blank in the source table.
Hope this help you pick the best tool for the job!
QuickBooks Integration for your Free Purchase Order Software
QuickBooks is the most popular Accounting system in use by the Free-Procurement community, so we thought we’d give you a little bonus gift with the 2014 release of SpendMap.
We’ve built direct integration with QuickBooks to push approved invoices (bills) and expense reimbursement transactions directly into your QuickBooks database, without the need for batch file exports and imports.
So, for example, once you have approved a supplier’s invoice for payment, SpendMap will create a pending Bill in QuickBooks, so you can cut a check to the supplier and post the transaction to your G/L, with no duplicate data entry.
Direct QuickBooks integration is coming soon, along with 20 or so other new features and capabilities, in the 2014 release of the free version of SpendMap.
New Tutorial: Importing items into free Purchase Order Software
We’ve had a few requests for help with importing your items (item catalogs) into the free Purchase Order Software during initial system setup (saves time over keying in all the item details manually).
So to help you out, we put together a new video tutorial on importing items into the Item Master File.
The video actually covers many generic concepts about SpendMap’s built-in integration tools, not just importing items, so it will also be helpful for you when importing other Master Files (suppliers, account codes, assets, etc), as well as setting up transactional interfaces (e.g. exporting approved invoices to your Accounts Payable system, etc.).
TIP: As you’ll see at the end of the tutorial on importing items, we’ve added a sample import configuration to your Evaluation System, along with a sample spreadsheet containing a few sample items that you can use to test the import utility. If you recently downloaded the free version, you may need to select the menu Help > Check For Updates to get these files.
You can watch all 14 video tutorials to help implement your free Purchase Order Software on our YouTube channel.
Thanks, and please keep the feedback coming!
Importing items into free Purchase Order Software
I recently helped a Free-Procurement customer with importing his items into the Item Master File in SpendMap and I thought a couple of the tips I gave him would be useful for you as well.
What I’m going to outline here applies to importing most of the system’s Master Files, not just items…
The Free-Procurement Project 