Setting up Actinic Link with Sage

[rodneep]

I just purchased Actinic Link for Sage.

OK.... I see in the manual how to export stuff from Sage to populate a new Actinic.... or to export stuff from Actinic to populate a new Sage. However... that's not what I want to do!

We have Actinic already populated with about 1500 products (and some "special" customers who login), and we already have Sage populated with all the same products (and thousands of customers - that we don't really want to import into Actinic).

The manual says nothing about that scenario :-(

What we do want to do, is simply collect orders in Actinic, and then transfer them to Sage for the order processing and invoicing. The idea being to do away with manual typing of orders into Sage, which is what we have been doing in the past.

But.... I don't see how to do that without first doing a complete transfer of data and products from Actinic to Sage.... stuff that is already in Sage.

What we can't afford to do, with anything from 50 to 150 orders a day, is screw things up.

Unless the process is easier than my perception of it, then it would be even worth having someone who has first hand knowledge of Actinic/Sage Link to come and do the setup for us. (In Gloucestershire).

Am I worrying unduly? Or missing something simple?

Thanks
Rod
http://www.rod-neep.co.uk

[cdicken]

Unless the process is easier than my perception of it,

It is.

As long as the 'product references' in Actinic are the same as the 'product codes' in Sage, you are all set.

Any orders transferred from Actinic to Sage will be raised within Sage as invoices/sales orders and then the stock levels of the ordered products will be depleted in Sage.

It sounds like you are never going to transfer anything from Sage to Actinic - only orders from Actinic to Sage. Concentrate on setting up the 'Actinic to Sage Line 50' profile - particularly:

- the 'Transaction Types' tab (where you specify whether you are creating Sales Orders or Invoices in Sage)

- the 'Customers' tab (where you can choose whether you want to create new customers in Sage from Actinic orders)

- the 'Tax Codes' tab (the attached screenshot shows you the settings for this that you will most likely need)

Do use the documentation - it does take you through the set-up of each area.

[rodneep]

Thanks Chris
Your reply was *very* welcomed ;-)

Stock levels are never a problem for us, as we publish on demand, making CDs daily from a shortfall created by Sage. Effectively, we are always out of stock, but the stock is delivered from the CD making machines daily. (In practice, we let Sage create a shortfall list, and then deliver it immediately, and then let Sage run the invoices from the orders). That means that I'll let Actinic send orders to Sage.

OK, first I'll have a go at sorting out all the duplicated products in diffrent parts of the catalague. Those have historically been added to Actiniv the "easy" way by giving them the same product reference with a suffix letter. Humans could handle that doing manual entry in Sage, by simply omitting the suffix, but the time has come to do it right, so that there is only one reference for a product, as in Sage.

Once the "little" things like that have been sorted out, then I'll give it a go.

One little question: In the past all we have been doing is a print of orders in Actinic, and then manually typing them into Sage. In Actinic, that leaves them all marked as "pending". The first time that it is run, will Actinic Link try to transfer those old orders to Sage? Or should I delete all the old orders in Actinic first? (I can't see a good reason for keeping them there?)

Another thought: If I create a new product in Actinic, will Link automatically create that product in Sage too, or do we have to add it to Sage manually as before? I can see that timing of doing that will be critical if done manually.

Cheers
Rod
http://www.rod-neep.co.uk

[cdicken]

Or should I delete all the old orders in Actinic first?

The best thing would actually be to mark them as completed and exported. You do this by marking all the order lines within the orders as shipped, and then mark all the payments as received. Then select them all, right-click on them and select 'Re-export to File'. This will move them all to the 'Completed' tab and mark them as 'Exported'. They will then be out of the way.

or do we have to add it to Sage manually as before?

The normal flow would be to create them in Sage, and then create them in Actinic. Actinic link will automatically transfer new products across if you want it to.