One of the handy things about Sage 300 is its flexibility. While it excels with accounting and inventory management out of the box, with over 80 different modules, it allows for a variety of integrations. Users can tailor the ERP as needed to suit their business and industry. So, in some cases, customers track certain purchase transactions in an external application and need to bring that data into Sage 300 for further purchase order management, connecting it to inventory levels and allowing for analysis. If you're unsure of the process, we're diving into how to import your data into the Sage 300 Purchase Order (P/O) module using the built-in templates.
Generating the Import Template
To simplify matters, Sage 300 generates templates that enable you to import one or more entries into P/O. Depending on your needs, these templates can be generated in a variety of formats such as Excel, CSV file, Access, ODBC, and XML. Following the template layout ensures that the data is structured and formatted in a way that Sage 300 will accept and minimizes potential errors, giving you clean data to work with.
Follow these steps to generate the import template:
- In P/O Purchase Order Entry, click File > Export.
- In the File Type dropdown box, select the type of file you want to generate.
- In the File field, specify the file name and location you want to save the template to.
- Click the checkboxes to select which fields you want to include in your import template (note that some fields indicated in red are required and cannot be deselected).
- Click OK to generate the import template which is saved to the location you specified earlier.
It's as simple as that. One great feature to point out is the Save Script button at the bottom of the screen. This option allows you to create a script containing these settings for importing and exporting records for future use. It doesn't get more streamlined than that!
Importing Data to P/O
Now, the important bit of purchase order management: getting your data into Sage 300. It's even more straightforward than creating the template. Just go through the following steps:
- Open the template file that was generated above which can be found in the location you specified in step
- Input your data into the appropriate fields within the template.
- When finished, go to File > Import in the P/O Purchase Order Entry screen.
- Choose the import file you created that now contains your data and click OK.
Done and dusted, as they say.
One important note: Before you import your data to the Sage 300 Purchase Order Module, always be sure to back up your system. Improperly importing data can potentially damage your database. Before starting any import routine, feel free to reach out to our experts if you’re unfamiliar with these functions and need assistance.
So, why is better purchase order management important? A study from last year shows that storing data in various separate places led to roughly 37% of project failures. The same study shows that, in those cases, employees lose 9.5 hours weekly hunting for project data. Now you and your team can reference P/O data to draw KPIs from procurement analysis, your strategists do some forecasting, and everyone has access to everything in a central source of truth.
