How to Import Transactions using the ASCII File Post Process Session 267 Presented By: Jim Collins Director of IS Graceland University This presentation and supporting documentation is available TODAY at

Who Am I?  I’m a computer guy  I’m Graceland’s transaction file post guru  I converted our Accounting office to CX including nightly transfers and past years data

Who I’m Not  I’m not an accountant  I’m not a CX Menu user  I’m not a CX user  I’m not an ACE report expert  I’m not an expert on your campus’ use of CX Any of these could cause some confusion and frustration during this session!

A quick note on Graceland’s (non standard?) Account Numbers  We have a 2 character fund  We have a 5 character function (and blank is valid)  We have a 4 character object  We do not use subfund Some example account numbers:

What is an ASCII Transaction Post File?  A CX STANDARD way to load transactions from outside sources into CX  “ASCII” = a plain text file  CSV (comma delimited) file

Format: Header Row HD: author, User ID, post date, station, fiscal month, journal code, doc code HD: XTRANS,,05/31/2007,,MAY,AR  Author: Name of process that produces the file. This is not loaded into the database.  User Id number: We’ve always left this blank. I think it’s not loaded into the database  Post date: MM/DD/YYYY format. CX standard process ignores this field.  Station Number: posted files don’t go through a station so this is typically left blank  Fiscal month. CX standard process ignores this field.  Journal Code: AC, AP, AR, SA, CH, QC, DA, PD, FA, JC, CK, BG, PC, PR, PS, SB.  Document code. We’ve always left this blank (the doc code is on the GE lines below).

Format: General Ledger Entry Row GE: Doc ID, doc code, doc num, "comment", entry, Form of Payment, Pay number GE: ,XT, ,"Extensions",XTND  Document id: If there is a 1 to 1 relationship between the GE and a single ID, this should be the ID number to make certain CX reports show the subsidiary info. Otherwise, 0.  Document Table Code: Must be an active doc from doc_table.  Document Number: an integer. Often made up (like the date in yyyymmdd format) or the serial key from a driving table. The most desirable is to increment last_issued_num from doc_table and use that number, but that’s very difficult to build into a file.  Entry Description: 24 character description. The only description in files without subsidiaries. The comment is for the batch of transactions and not a single transaction. It should have quotes around it but should not contain any quotes.  Entry Type: XTND, BOOK, etc. Must be an active ent in ent_table.  Form of Payment. We have never used this because we load charges not payments. But this would be any valid form of payment like CK (check).  Form of Payment number (check number). We’ve never used this because we load charges not payments. But this would be the form of payment number (like check number).

Format: General Ledger Transaction Row GT: amount, fund, func, obj, subfund, GT: ,10,,1210,,  Amount: the amount of the charge or the credit.  The amount cannot have dollar signs or commas. Parenthesis cannot be used to indicate negative amounts. A negative must be represented by the minus sign.  Fund  Func  Obj  Subfund

Format: Subsidiary Ledger Entry Row SE: subs, subs num, doc id, doc code, doc num, "comment", entry SE: S/A,255671,255671,XT,12345,"ENGL3410",XTND  Subs Code: S/A, etc. Must match the account number in the GT account record for the transaction as defined in subs_table.  Subs Number: student’s id number  Doc ID: student’s id number  Doc Code: same as the doc code on the GE line. This may not be required but it has been in all the files I’ve made.  Doc Number: an integer. See the note on GE doc number  Description: 24 character description. It should have quotes around it and should not contain quotes.  Entry Type: Must be valid code. Same as the entry type on the GE line. This may not be required but it has been in all the files I’ve made.

Format: Subsidiary Ledger Transaction Row ST: tot, tot period, bal, bal period, amount, assoc amount ST: BKST,SP07,SB,SP07, 21.81, 0  Note: Some subsidiaries require tot codes, some do not. For those that do not have tots, the tot code and bal code must be spaces (surrounded by quotes) and the periods are left blank: SE: MISC,1,1,AR,56350,"Housing",ENT ST: " ",," ",,100.00,0.00  Tot Code: Must be an active tot_code from subt_table (if required).  Tot Period: 2 character Session + 2 char year (SU07) for students, calendar year (CY07) for wages.  Bal Code: This code is “SB” or blank in all the files I’ve done.  Bal Period: The bal period is “INV” for accounts payable, it is the same as the tot period for student accounts (“SP07”), and is the combination of payroll code and payroll number (“MON100”) for wages payable.  Subsidiary Amount: amount of individual line  Subsidiary Associated Amount: Typically zero. In payroll, amount deduction is based on.

Format: Trailer Row TR:  Every posting file ends with a trailer line. It has no other inputs.

Format: Comments # This is a comment on its own line ST: BKST,SP07,SB,SP07, 21.81, 0,# This comment explains an ST line A pound sign starts a comment which continues to the end of the line. You can put comments as their own lines or at the tail end of any line. Pound signs are allowed in transaction descriptions. For example, this row does not have a comment: GE: 5981,AR,86283,"PARKING VIOLATION #1149",ENT It will load a transaction with “PARKING VIOLATION #1149” as the description.

Examples  See the full examples on

Excel  In the examples above here is a colon after the line type. The file format also allows for a comma here. This makes it a completely comma delimited file which means it can be created from or loaded into Excel or other spread sheet programs. HD: XTRANS,,05/31/2007,,MAY,AR HD,XTRANS,,05/31/2007,,MAY,AR  If you save a CSV file from Excel, you may need to check it for issues before you load it. For example you can’t have quotes in the transaction comments.  You can’t have dollar signs or commas in the amounts  We do a lot of GL files in Excel but avoid files with subsidiaries.

How to load  In Menu: [c] Fiscal Management [a] Accounting [c] Journal Processing Menu [i] ASCII Posting Menu [a] Post ASCII Files to G/L  At Unix command line:  cd ascii  ($CARSPATH//vchpost/Filepost/ascii)  filepost -n filename -m a -d 05/31/2007 -p MAY

Official CX Documentation  CarsDocs/Print Files/Techman/Tmglvol1.doc

My Software Contest Entry  Grrrrrrr! 1 Error at a time!  Accounts needing to be set up  Accounts not allowing that kind of journal  Closed dates 