Importing Customers into Sage 50 UK

This task will import customers into Sage 50 that are supplied in Sage 50 UK Customer XML format.

Settings

Sage 50 Connection

Required
The connection to Sage 50 UK to use. See the Connecting to Sage 50 UK article if you require more information on how to create/manage connections.

Auto Generate References

Required

  • Account Reference Convention - Used when auto generating account references. Select a method for generating the alphabetic part of the account reference. The following options are available:

    • CompanyOtherwiseFullName - The company name will be used if provided, otherwise the customers full name.
    • CompanyOtherwiseForenameSurname - The company name will be used if provided, otherwise the customers forename followed by surname.
    • CompanyOtherwiseSurnameForename - The company name will be used if provided, otherwise the customers surname followed by forename.
    • ForenameSurname - The customers forename followed by surname.
    • SurnameForename - The customers surname followed by forename.

  • Alphabetic Length - Used when auto generating account references. Controls the number of alphabetic characters to use in the generated account reference (e.g. 3 may produce an account reference starting with ABC)

  • Auto Generate Account Ref - Set this to True to have the task auto-create an account reference if one is not provided in the input file, or an account reference is not found in the truth table based on the customer Id. Set to False to prevent new account references being generated automatically.

  • Mask - This will prefix any account reference generated by Zynk, for example, if the account reference was 'INT001' and the mask was 'Z-' the account reference would be set to 'Z-INT001' in Sage. Wild cards can be used to insert characters at certain positions in the account reference. For example, the mask ???-??? may produce the account reference 'INT-001'.

  • Numeric Length - Used when auto generating account references. Controls the number of numeric characters to use in the generated account reference (e.g. 3 may produce an account reference ending in 001)

  • Regular Expression - The regular expression to use for stripping out undesired characters from the generated account reference. E.g. use \s* to strip out any spaces

Create Multiple Delivery Addresses

Required
Set this value to True if you need to create multiple delivery addresses each time a new delivery address is added, False will not create delivery addresses on the customer record

Match Accounts On

Optional
The list of fields to use to try and find an existing account in Sage which matches with the customer in the input file. These settings will only be used if there is no account reference provided for the customer in the input file, and no account reference found in the truth table based on the customer Id. When multiple fields are selected, only customers in Sage where the value of all fields matches those in the input file will be considered a match.

The following fields are supported:

  • Company Name
  • Contact Name or Trade Contact
  • Telephone or Telephone 2
  • Mobile
  • Fax
  • Email, Email2 or Email3
  • Website
  • Address Line 1
  • Postcode
  • DUNS Number
  • Analysis 1, Analysis 2 or Analysis 3

Match Delivery Addresses On

Optional
The list of fields to use to try and find an existing delivery address in Sage which matches with the delivery address(es) in the input file. This setting will only be used if the 'Create Multiple Delivery Addresses' setting is enabled. If no fields are selected, the default behaviour is to match delivery addresses based on description (if specified in the input file) or postcode. When multiple fields are selected, only delivery addresses in Sage where the value of all fields matches those in the input file will be considered a match.

The following fields are supported:

  • Description
  • Company Name
  • Street 1
  • Postcode
  • Contact Name
  • Email
  • Telephone
  • Fax

Fail File

Required
The name of a file for "failed" imports to be sent to

Input File

Required
The source file that you want to import in Zynk XML format

Success File

Required
The name of a file for "successful" imports to be sent to.

Zynk Settings

See Common Task Settings

Import Customers vs Auto Create Account

A common query with our support team is the difference between using a separate Import Customers task than the Auto Create Account setting on the Import Sales Orders.

Import Customers

We'd advise using the Import Customers task if you require more specific contact details about your customers, i.e telephone number, email address, address information etc. Also, if you require any information pushing back to your e-commerce platform or third party system from Sage, this would be the best available option for you.

Auto Create Account

Alternatively, you can use the Auto Create Account if you're not necessarily worried about recording a lot of information on your customers, it's just more important to get your orders into Sage 50. For many people considering this option, it might be a better idea to use a generic account for all your web sales rather than importing several customer accounts.

Examples

Sample input file, for full documentation and samples see Sage 50 UK Customer XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Company
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Customers>
    <Customer>
      <Id>123</Id>
      <CompanyName>Zynk Software</CompanyName>
      <AccountReference />
      <CustomerInvoiceAddress>
        <Title />
        <Forename>Support</Forename>
        <Surname>Person</Surname>
        <Company>Internetware</Company>
        <Address1>Nelson House</Address1>
        <Address2>Fleming Business Centre</Address2>
        <Address3>Jesmond</Address3>
        <Town>Newcastle Upon Tyne</Town>
        <Postcode>NE2 3AE</Postcode>
        <County>Tyne and Wear</County>
        <Country>GB</Country>
        <Telephone>0845 123 2920</Telephone>
        <Fax>0845 123 2921</Fax>
        <Mobile />
        <Email>[email protected]</Email>
      </CustomerInvoiceAddress>
      <CustomerDeliveryAddress>
        <Title />
        <Forename>Support</Forename>
        <Surname>Person</Surname>
        <Company>Internetware</Company>
        <Address1>Nelson House</Address1>
        <Address2>Fleming Business Centre</Address2>
        <Address3>Jesmond</Address3>
        <Town>Newcastle Upon Tyne</Town>
        <Postcode>NE2 3AE</Postcode>
        <County>Tyne and Wear</County>
        <Country>GB</Country>
        <Telephone>0845 123 2920</Telephone>
        <Fax>0845 123 2921</Fax>
        <Mobile />
        <Email>[email protected]</Email>
      </CustomerDeliveryAddress>
      <Currency>GBP</Currency>
      <TermsAgreed>1</TermsAgreed>
      <AccountStatus>1</AccountStatus>
    </Customer>
  </Customers>
</Company>