Act! Link for Accounting User Guide

Transcription

1 Act! Link for Accounting User Guide

2 Contents Act! Link for Accounting Introduction Page 3 Compatibility Page 4 Automatically Linking Companies Page 5 Automatically Linking Contacts Page 7 Using the Link to Manually Create Companies and Contacts in Accounts Page 10 Manually Link Existing Records Page 13 Tab Functionality Page 17 Removing Links Page 23

3 Act! Link for Accounting Introduction What is Act! Link for Accounting? Act! Link for Accounting is an Act! add-on that allows users to link records in Act! to equivalent records in Sage Accounts. Doesn t Act! Already have inbuilt integration with Sage Accounts? Yes it does, and has done for several years. However, as the link was created and managed by Sage, it is no longer being updated and does not work with the latest versions of Sage Accounts. Because of this, Swiftpage have developed a replacement. That replacement is Act! Link for Accounting. Can you give a brief Overview of what Linking Means? Essentially once the setup is complete the customer will be able to link Company and Contact records in Act! to Customer records in Accounts. Once linked this will allow customers to view Accounts information in a new tab in Act!, as well as sales orders and invoice information. It is important to note here that the link works one-way from Accounts to Act!. You cannot make changes in Act! and have them synchronize across to Accounts. The only exception to this is that it is possible to use an Act! record to create a new Customer in Accounts. This will be discussed later in the training. Please also note that the link will connect records in Act! to Customers in Accounts, it will NOT link to Suppliers. The process is somewhat similar to Contact or Calendar synchronization using Outlook in that it is not an instantaneous update. It is possible to set up Act! Link for Accounting so that it automatically updates at scheduled times, or the updates can also be done manually. Linking primarily occurs between existing records in Act! and existing records in Accounts. Whilst it is possible to push a record from Act! into Accounts and link them, it is not possible to import records directly in from Accounts. A workaround to this will be discussed later in the training. NOTE: This guide will take you through the functionality of Act! Link for Accounting so assumes that it is already installed and configured. For information on preparing, installing and setting up Act! Link for Accounting, please see the Act! Link for Accounting Administrator Guide. 3

4 Compatibility Windows Versions Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 Server 2008, Server 2012, Server 2016 Act! Versions Act! v17 Pro and Premium Act! v18 Pro and Premium Act! v19 Pro and Premium Act! Premium for Web the full functionality is only available when using the installed version of Act! for Web, not when accessing through the web client. The web client does have some limited functionality, please see the 2nd Note in the Tab Functionality section later in the training for details. Sage Accounts Versions Sage Instant Accounts v21, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v21 Sage Instant Accounts v22, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v22 Sage Instant Accounts v23, Sage 50 Accounts (all variants) v23 SQL Versions SQL Server 2008 R2 (Express and Standard) SQL Server 2012 (Express and Standard) SQL Server 2014 (Express and Standard) Microsoft Dot Net Version 4.5 and above 4

5 Automatically Linking Companies Once the initial setup is complete, three new tabs will appear automatically on the Company and Contact records within Act!. The functionality of these tabs is discussed later in the guide, but to start using them you will need to link your Act! records to equivalent Customer records in Sage Accounts. The best way to do this is to use the automatic linking process. NOTE: As stated, this process will link existing records together. If you do not have existing records to link in BOTH programs then this process can be skipped. To begin the linking process, go back to Accounting > Settings and look at the bottom part of the window: Just as with normal duplicate checking, you can have Act! Link for Accounting match on up to three different fields. NOTE: The Sage field Name corresponds with the Company field in Act!, whereas the Sage field Contact_name corresponds with the Contact field in Act!. Please pay close attention to this, as the default value may be incorrect. For example, in the screenshot above, the field linking for contacts (automatically linking Contacts is discussed in the next section) is incorrect, this would match the Sage Company name with the Contact name in Act!. To begin the automatic linking process for companies, click on Link Companies: Once you click Yes to confirm you are happy to proceed, the Act! Link for Accounting software will perform the task for you. The length of time this takes is dependent on the amount of records being linked. Typically a number of messages will very quickly flash across the screen such as: 5

6 Once completed, the below message will be seen: Now if you go into the Company records in Act! and check the Sage Account tab, the linked fields should now be showing: On top of that, if you check any Contacts within the Company record (whether they were linked or added statically/dynamically), all of those Contacts will have the same details showing in the Sage Account tab and they will also be linked. NOTE: If you use Companies within Act! we would recommend using the automatic linking feature for Companies. As mentioned, this will cascade down into Contacts so will save a lot of time. 6

7 Automatically Linking Contacts If you do not use the Companies section of Act!, it is also possible to automatically link Contact records to corresponding records in Sage Accounts as well. NOTE: This process could also be used to link any Contacts that did not have Company records after performing an automatic Company sync. To begin linking Contacts automatically, go to Accounting > Settings NOTE: As can be seen underneath the Automatically Link Contacts section, the default mapping is set up to match the Sage Field Name with the Act! Field Contact. As mentioned previously, this will very likely need to be changed so that it uses the Act! Field COMPANY instead: Once the mapping has been selected, click Link Contacts then Yes to begin: 7

8 Just as before, the Act! Link for Accounting will now automatically link the records together. Again, you will see a number of messages as each record is linked: Once the process is complete, you will see the below message: Now if you go into the Contact records in Act! and check the Sage Account tab, the linked fields should now be showing: 8

9 Contrary to what we have seen previously when automatically linking Companies, linking Contacts does NOT push the information through into the Company record. You could then of course perform the automatic Company linking if you wanted. 9

10 Using the Link to Manually Create Companies and Contacts in Accounts The automatic linking process is extremely useful to link existing records in Act! to existing records in Accounts, and is certainly the quickest way to link those records together. There could well be some situations however that require the ability to be able to manually create a new record, such as if you have created a new Company in Act! and you want to link it into Accounts. NOTE: If you only have data in either Act! OR Accounts it would be best to export the data into Excel, then import into the remaining program. Once that has been accomplished the automatic linking can then be used successfully. Information on importing and exporting is not provided in this document. The Act! Link for Accounting program allows you to use an existing Company or Contact in Act! and send those details into Accounts, linking the records together in the process. To do this, firstly, go to the Company record, click the Sage Account tab, and choose the option to Create in Sage: This will result in the following screen: 10

11 Notice that the program prompts for an Account Code. This is because all records in Accounts must have the Account Code field completed, it is a mandatory field, and it must be a unique code for every record. Because of this, the program will automatically generate an Account Code based on the first few letters of the Company name in Act!, but this can be amended if you wish. The record created in Sage will also be populated with the default Sage Customer account settings (e.g. price list, nominal code etc.) Once you select Yes, the Company will then be created in Accounts and the records will be linked. You will also be prompted to check the record in Accounts by the next message that automatically appears: Clicking Yes will then open the record in Accounts to display the information that has gone across. NOTE: Sage Accounts can be closed when you choose the option Create in Sage that we have been discussing, but if you want to open the account in Sage as per the screenshot above, then Accounts must be open. Once a record is linked, this same functionality (opening the record in the Accounts program) can be achieved by clicking on the Open in Sage button under the Sage Account tab: 11

12 Notice too that whilst the address information has gone across into Accounts, the fields within the Sage Account tab are NOT immediately updated. This is expected as the fields will only fill out once the next full update to the Data Warehouse has been performed. We will be discussing how to perform this update manually and automatically later in the training. The Create in Sage button is also available under the Sage Account tab for Contact records in Act!. This follows the exact same process that has been discussed above, but with one difference. When the record is created in Accounts, the Contact Information is also completed: NOTE: The Account Code that is automatically generated is taken from the Contact Surname, not the Company name. 12

13 Manually Link Existing Records As mentioned previously, the automatic linking process is the method we would recommend wherever possible. However, there will be occasions where you need to set up a link manually, for example you might have a new Contact in Act! for an existing linked Company and you want to link this new Contact too, or perhaps you are doing business with a Customer that has already been added in Accounts and you want to link a new Company in Act! to it. Let s start with the Company example, so imagine that there is an existing record in Accounts and we want to create a new Company in Act! for it. As previously mentioned we cannot pull through existing records from Accounts into Act!, the Act! Link for Accounting does not have that function. We could export the record to Excel, but there is a quicker method where an individual record is concerned. Firstly create a new Company in Act!, and all you need to complete is the Company name. Then go to the Sage Account tab and click Link to Sage: This will then give you the option to search for a Customer in Accounts that you want to link to: 13

14 Type in the Company name and click Find: Any results that are found will be listed. Also note the three different addresses present at the bottom of the window. Remember that in the Company records in Act!, there are 3 sets of 14

15 addresses, the main address that appears on the business card, and the two sets of addresses that appear under the Billing & Shipping tab. You can use the dropdown lists to pull the addresses from Accounts that are appropriate: Once the addresses have been selected, there are two options available, Link to Act! and Link & Update Act!. We will go through both options below. If you choose the option to Link to Act! then the link is completed and the information within the Sage Account tab is displayed correctly: Notice however that none of the Address fields within the business card itself have been updated. If you want to update the fields within Act! itself then you can do so by using the second option mentioned, the option to Link & Update Act!. If that is used instead, then the result will be as per the below screenshot: 15

16 The addresses under the Billing and Shipping tab will also be completed as well. In this way, whilst the Act! Link for Accounting cannot directly import records, when performing a manual link it can import details and use those to complete some of the standard fields within Act! The process for linking a new Contact is exactly the same as that for a Company, the only difference being that Contacts do not have Billing and Shipping addresses (though when you run through the linking process it will still give you dropdowns that list these as per the screenshots above). 16

17 Tab Functionality Once records are linked there are up to 3 new tabs that are added into the Company and Contact records. We will look at their functionality now. NOTE: The Sage Sales Orders tab will NOT show if you are using Sage Instant Accounts. Also, if Sage Accounts is not installed locally, then licensed users will only see a summary of the Invoices or Orders, they will not be able to open or create them. Sage Account This tab shows information from the linked Accounts record. When the Act! Link for Accounting program was first installed and setup, it added new fields to the database. The information for these fields can be seen within the Sage Account tab, and they cannot be edited. The fields that have been created actually exist as fields in the database. So if you were to go to Tools > Define Fields then the fields will be listed here (they are the fields with an SL_ prefix). As such, these fields can also be added to your standard layout as well if you wish, for example the below fields have been added to a new custom tab: For most users by default the access level for these fields will be set to Read Only but for the administrator who sets up the Act! Link for Accounting, they will have Full Access to the fields by default. This means that when the fields are added to the layout, they will be editable by that administrator: 17

18 Changing the information in any of those fields WILL update the information viewed in the Sage Account tab as well. HOWEVER the next time the sync is performed, the data will sync back in from Accounts so any changes you make will be overwritten, therefore there is not much sense in making alterations unless you also removed the link from that Company or Contact record. We will discuss removing links in a later section. NOTE: If the fields have been added to the layout as per the screenshot above (so you have added the fields in yourself to a custom tab using the Layout Designer), then these fields WILL be visible if viewing the database using Act! Premium for web through the web client, whereas the Sage Account, Sage Invoices and Sage Sales Orders tabs will NOT be visible through the web client. Sage Invoices The Sage Invoices tab gives the ability to both view and create invoices within Sage Accounts. Firstly, it is possible to see basic information about invoices within this tab as per the below: 18

19 If you want to open any of the invoices, click the appropriate invoice to highlight it then click on Open: NOTE: You must have Sage Accounts open in order to view the invoices. If you do not, you will receive the below error message instead: 19

20 You must also have Sage Accounts open in order to create a new invoice by clicking on the New button: Sage Sales Orders This tab works identically to the Sage Invoices tab, except that it shows the Sales Orders instead: 20

21 You can also Open or create New Sales Orders in the exact same way as we have previously seen, making sure that Sage Accounts is open and clicking on the appropriate buttons. Open: 21

22 New: 22

23 Removing Links If you need to, it is possible to disable or remove the link between individual records in Act! and Accounts, as well as remove it from all records if desired. We will look firstly at how to remove individual links. Individual Links Firstly, open the linked record that you wish to change (so the Company or the Contact record). Click on the Sage Account tab and click the button to Link to Sage: This will show you the link that is currently in place, and will also give you the option to Remove Link as well: Once you click Remove Link you will get the following confirmation message: 23

24 Clicking Yes will then remove the link from that record. Remove All Links There is no option as such to remove links from all records, but you can easily use the Settings to perform the same function. To begin, go to Accounting > Settings and look at the bottom Automatic link options: The idea here is that we can map a field from Sage to a field in Act! which we are certain will find zero matches. In the example above, we re matching the Sage BillingAddress with the Act! Company as we know that this will find no matches. Also notice that we have ticked the option for Relink all Companies which means that instead of only automatically linking Companies that are not currently linked, it will instead relink ALL Company records. Once you click Link Companies, you will then see a confirmation message: Once you click Yes this will then relink all the Company records. Once this process is completed, all of the links will have been removed as there will be zero matches. 24