General principles of exports
Cleemy Expenses manages accounting entries from different accounting journals: expense reports, payments and advances. These entries are detailed in a dedicated support page.
All entries can be exported in various formats and are completely configurable. Each accounting software/ERP has its own format and some are even unique to the client (SAP being the perfect example).
When entries are exported, Cleemy Expenses writes every line of each entry. Each line has a defined type: charge, VAT, employee compensation account, legal entity compensation account, employee payment, etc.
The configuration of export formats therefore consists of indicating to Cleemy Expenses how it must represent an accounting entry line in the export file for each type of accounting entry line.
In practice, the export format describes the different types of lines (headers, credit, charge, VAT), explaining the different fields (i.e. columns of the export file) and their contents (constant values, variables including posting dates or combinations of these different elements).
The accounting export formats configured in Cleemy Expenses are attached to legal entities: if every entity of a company does not have the same accounting software, it is possible to create a specific export format for each entity.
The configurations described below are available in the configuration tab under the “export formats” section.
Using a template
The majority of accounting software programs have specific accounting entry file formats. We have therefore created templates in order to simplify their configuration. With these templates, it is best to adjust certain fields: the journal code, the names and reference IDs of entries are often personalized according to the client’s desires.
During the creation of a new export format, you must choose the starting template (which can be a blank page). If analytic entries have to be exported, it is possible to choose the analytic axe to use at this stage.
Configuring an export format
The accounting export configuration interface appears as a table.
Line types
The lines correspond with types of entries (credits, charges, VAT, headers). A certain number of rules are applied to them:
- As many header lines as desired can be created. They will appear at the top of the file.
- There can only be one credit line placed before or after the charge or the VAT lines. In other words, at the beginning or at the end of the entries of the expense report. It is possible to not include a credit line (although this case is rare).
- There can also be multiple charge lines. This is usually the case for SAGE and CEGID as long as there are analytics: with these software programs, there must be one line for general accounting and one line for each analytic plan.
- The number of VAT lines should be one or zero (for exports where the VAT appears in the charge lines).
- There can also only be one payment line template as well as one for its compensation in an export format.
- For one-time advances, the following lines can be configured: imputation of an advance expense report, granting of an advance to an employee, and the compensation of advances (i.e. to a cash/bank account). This also applies to regular advances (except for imputations of advance expense reports).
All you have to do is click on the first column in order to display the toolbar which will allow you to create, delete, or rearrange rows.
Fields to export
Columns correspond with different fields of the export format. According to the accounting software, the fields of the entry file can have different delimiters: semicolons, commas, tabulations, etc. It is also possible to have fixed length fields (i.e. no delimiter).
The interface allows you to create, delete or rearrange columns. All you have to do is click on the header in order to display the toolbar which will allow you to perform these actions.
Configuring the contents of a field
By clicking on a cell, a window will appear that will allow you to configure the contents that Cleemy Expenses will export for this field. These contents are composed of elements that can be either constant (i.e. a text that will be written, for example in the export file) or variable (ex.: the posting date of an entry is a variable).
It is possible to add several elements in one field, in which case Cleemy Expenses will concatenate them (without temporary spaces).
In order to add an element, all you have to do is click on the “Field contents” box for a list of available elements to appear. The elements depend on the type of line: for example, it is not possible to show specific information about an expense in a credit line such as charge accounts. The list can be filtered by typing a few characters in the field.
To delete an element, all you have to do is click on the “x” to the left of the element’s name.
Some elements have options available and are displayed below the contents of the field. It is usually possible to change the date display format or to define the number of decimal places for an amount.
Formating a field
During an export and once Cleemy Expenses has created the contents of a field, it is possible to make modifications to this character string:
- Remove a precise number of characters to the right or to the left. This is sometimes used to edit identifiers such as ID numbers.
- Limit the length of a field to a specific number of characters, removing those that exceed the authorized length to the left or the right of the character string.
- Complete the field with a specific character so that it reaches a given length.
All you have to do is select the desired modifications and complete the cells. If several modifications are configured, they will be performed in order (remove characters, then trim those that exceed a specified length, and finally fill them).
These format options are generally used for fixed length files such as SAGE and CEGID native formats.
General parameters of a file
There are some general parameters for a file which can be accessed by clicking on the button of the same name.
- The file’s name as well as that of its extension are customizable.
- Cleemy Expenses can be told to not write credit, charge and VAT lines when the amount is zero (this comes in handy when using expense types that are purely declarative).
- It is possible to tell Cleemy Expenses to insert a new line character at the end of a file - certain programs require this.
- Cleemy Expenses exports are very exhaustive and create at least as many lines as there are expenses in an expense report. The merge option allows you to merge in the same entry the expenses that have the same charge account and the same analytics.
- Many fields are multilingual: the export language to be used can be defined.
- Field delimiters can be defined in the output file as well as the delimiter of decimals.
- The file can be encoded in ANSI or in UTF8: if a client informs you that the imported entries include jumbled characters, this parameter needs to be changed.