Export product info from actinic to sage line 50

[rookers]

Yes I agree with you totally. I have in fact given up trying to make it work. I have wasted 100's of hours fiddling about with it. All the work arounds and frigs just do not come up with the goods, or should I say "products".

[cdicken]

Yep - I agree with all of this. It is a frustrating limitation of Sage, and I have added a new wishlist topic to the 'Wish List Suggestions' thread to have the ability to export products from Actinic in a sage-compatable format.

[Jarvis]

OK - please see the attached zip file for a working Sage import file.

Sorry Chris, I know you're trying to help, but that file won't work.
It appears that there is a field missing as it expects Price to be in field 4 not field 5. (Why don't they call fields A, B, C like the rest of the world)?
However, the good news is that I have got it to work.
1 Export the file from Actinic.
2 Click column A to sort then delete all but "Products"
3 Import into Excel
4 Save immediatly as a .csv
5 Open their example for reference
6 Propogate your exported files with the data required.
I pasted their header in my exported file as a reference and then deleted it once propogated.
7 Make sure that all fields have some sensible data in, 1's 0's or 4000 for "Sage Nominal Reference"
8 Insert a new column after C and copy prices into that field.
9 Delete all data from J and K. (J & K should all now be blank).
10 Make sure that the date field is in the correct "Date Format"
11 Make sure that the price field is in the correct format "00.00" not "0000".
12 Save and Import into Sage. (Job Done)
13 Write to Sage and ask them why they can't get it right?

I know that some elements of this are unnecessary, (not sure whether column D & E should have the prices), but at least it works.

I would also suggect that you use the Actinic into Sage route rather than the Sage into Actinic.
Actinic is your Shop with products, Sage is your Accountant with customers!

[Orchid]

on one of my projects I am coming to sage a bit late... haven't got any products in the sage database at the moment... and to be honest the above sounds like a bit of a frag...

Also the site is in 8.5.2 so does that make things any easier??

Do I need to have products both in Sage and Actnic - or can I use sage to keep an accountancy reference of sales and receipts and let Actinic do Product entry... not sure we really need stock control at this stage as we are mostly drop shipping..

[cdicken]

on one of my projects I am coming to sage a bit late... haven't got any products in the sage database at the moment... and to be honest the above sounds like a bit of a frag...

Sage's product import is pretty awful - so the method described above is the only way of getting basic product data into Sage if you want Sage to monitor your stock levels, and you want to control your prices in Sage.

Also the site is in 8.5.2 so does that make things any easier??

No - sorry. The Link functionality isn't any different in 8.5.2

Do I need to have products both in Sage and Actnic - or can I use sage to keep an accountancy reference of sales and receipts and let Actinic do Product entry... not sure we really need stock control at this stage as we are mostly drop shipping..

All the order details are transferred from Actinic to Sage, so you will be able to monitor sales generate receipts etc I believe. I know you can do the 'BATCHINV' transfer method which just adds data into the 'Activity' section of Sage - which you can use for reporting. I'm not 100% sure whether you can raise invoices etc. without the product records being in Sage. I guess you could give it a try and find out.

[Sean Williams]

All this is rather dismaying as we are planning on migrating to Sage - specifically because my understanding has been it integrates with Actinic via Actinic Link.

The consensus in this thread: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=35073 is that the Link is hunky dory.

Judging by the conversation here, there is NOT what I would call a proper Link - having to export and mess about with .csv files etc is just hopeless.

If it really is the case the Link is half-a*sed, there's a perfect opportunity for somone (Norman, Jan, Gabriel et all ?) to produce an add-on to the Link to make it work as a decent piece of software should. To be able to use the Link fully would be worth plenty of dosh if it saves all that plonking about

Or better still, for Actinic and Sage to get it sorted.

Which reminds me - isn't this what this department of Actinic should be all about? http://www.actinicservices.co.uk/

I contacted them a few months ago about this very issue and they said it was in the pipeline. Which one?

Net Suite is beginning to look attractive again .....

[webxel]

WebXeL Product Importer for Sage 50

Hi guys it might be a bit late but we have developed a program for importing products and updating product in Sage 50.

It is called WebXeL Product Importer for Sage 50

You can get a free trial at http://www.sageproductimporter.co.uk

[Orchid]

That is CRACKING news!!!! - we will be getting that!!!

[Orchid]

Follow up to last post - you might want to contact Actinic and see if you can get them to put you on their pluggins page of their website - you're not strictly an Actinic Pluggin but your product is dead useful to Actinic users.

[webxel]

Thanks will certainly give that a try

[Sean Williams]

I still haven't upgraded from TAS to Sage, but it's in the plan for the quiet winter months

This sounds excellent.

Due to not having Sage yet, I'm not familiar with how Actinic Link works, so this may be a daft question:

Do Product importer and Order Importer replace Actinic Link, or work alongside it?

BTW Lawrence - 'Trial' is mispelled here:
"Say goodbye to the time consuming days of manually updating suppliers price increases or adding new products to Sage 50, try our 30 day trail of Product Importer for Sage today!" on this page:
http://www.sageproductimporter dot co dot uk/Default.aspx

Cheers

[webxel]

Product Importer for Sage 50 is a stand alone product that can add and update all product details in Sage 50.

Actinic Link can’t add new products to Sage 50 and can only update certain details.

Our product is ideal if you are using Actinic as your main products database and you need to add/update this information into Sage 50 from the Actinic database.

Order Importer for Sage 50 only import orders into Sage 50 and is not designed for use with Actinic database.

Thanks for identifying the typo :O)

[Orchid]

Therefore the best use would be alongside the existing Actinic Sage Link to do the thing that it falls down on - importing products into Sage from Actinic.

Process being - export products from Actinic as Hierarchical
Format CSV file
Import into sage using WebXel

But use Actinic Sage Link for importing orders into Sage - which it does well

[Sean Williams]

Thanks Lawrence.
So I understand it thus:
For complete integration between Actinic and Sage 50, both Actinic Link and Product Importer are required.
Order Importer is not required.

Cheers

Edit: This message crossed with Orchid's

[webxel]

Both spot on guys!