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If you are having difficulty getting to Purchase Order Interface to work, or would just like to be sure it does, here are some usage and troubleshooting tips.
Be sure to assign your Items to an appropriate Vendor, and, if the Vendor Codes you use in accounting are different from those in estimating, enter the Accounting Code for each Vendor in estimating system. Only those Item costs assigned to Vendors are sent over to accounting.
If your accounting system cannot find the interface files, check that:
(1) Your accounting program knows what directory/folder they are located in. Your accounting program may require they be a specific directory/folder, or may just need to know where you put them.
(2) You have run the P.O. export in EasyEst Estimating.
(3) You use the same Bid # for export and import.
If you job accounting system rejects some of the data, or aborts when trying to read it, it may be that you are using features of EasyEst Estimating that did not exist at the time the accounting system’s import program was written, and it cannot handle properly. (The P.O. export format was created back in 1985.) EasyEst Estimating has been extended to allow longer Codes and Descriptions, and much more flexibility. In most cases, using the new features will not present any problems. If your accounting software does not support the latest features, please contact your accounting vendor. The following limits applied at the time the CMS Estimating-Purchase Order Interface Format was originally created, and may apply to some older purchase order systems:
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Limit applies to
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Purchase Order
Interface
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Current Estimating Version Allows
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Vendor Code
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1-250
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8-character alphanumeric
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Budget Code
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1-200
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8-character alphanumeric
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Item Descriptions
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24 characters
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75 characters
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Item Code
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1.000-30.999
No blanks
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1.000-99.999.
Can be blank.
Some Price Books use: 1.00000-99.99999.
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Cost Type Codes
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1-25
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8-character alphanumeric
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Units of measure
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2 characters
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8 characters
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Location Code
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0-250
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8 character alphanumeric
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Super Assembly Code
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0-250
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8 character alphanumeric
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You may need to work within these older limits in order work with some account systems. (It is still possible to use small, numeric codes in the current version.) Be sure to contact your accounting vendor and see if they have a newer update available.
Also, be careful about including commas in Item Descriptions, Units, or Budget Accounting Codes. Some import programs do not read extra commas in the data correctly, and will cut off the remainder of the data in the field, and misinterpret other data for that record. For the same reason, any quote marks (") found in the data are exported as two single quotes (‘ then another ‘) to avoid possible problems.
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