Warning

Product support for the Creative Solutions Accounting platform ended on September 30, 2020.

Help & How-To Center content for the Creative Solutions Accounting platform may be outdated and is used at your own risk.

Accountant's Assistant is provided with the CBS Master License.

Information imported from Microsoft Office Accounting is a one-way transfer of information. You cannot set up and export information to Office Accounting from Accountant's Assistant.

See also: Microsoft Office Accounting data import - overview

Import procedure

1. Open the client in CSA that corresponds to the client's Office Accounting company.

   Note: The General Ledger module must be selected for this CSA client. If you are importing payroll information from your client's Microsoft Office Accounting company, you must also select the Payroll Compliance module for the client.

2. In CSA, choose Utilities > Accountant's Assistant > Microsoft Office Accounting.
3. Choose Setup > Miscellaneous Information to open the Miscellaneous Information dialog. Choose the General Ledger account to use for unassigned by selecting it from the drop-down list.
4. (Optional) You may choose to mark any of the following checkboxes:
   • Do not import employees or payroll checks
   • Import only employees and payroll checks
   • Do not import inactive employees
   • Do not import inactive vendors
   • Skip Chart of Accounts Assignment
5. (Optional) If you want to create a GL transaction when you retrieve payroll checks from Office Accounting, mark the Create payroll journal entry checkbox, and then click the option for the type of journal entry to be created.
6. Click one of the options to set the date for the payroll entry and then click OK.
7. Choose Tasks > Retrieve or click the button on the shortcut bar to begin importing the data from Office Accounting. You will be prompted to back up your client data before continuing the import. After you have created the backup copy, the Office Accounting Export File Location dialog opens.
8. Specify the location where the export files are located and select the correct export file from the drop-down list in the Office Accounting Company Name field. Note that the exported date range for the file appears in the Date Range of Selected Export field. Click OK to continue.
9. The Office Accounting Transaction Date Range dialog opens. Enter the date range in MMDDYY format for the data you want to import and then click OK. (Only transactions that fall in the specified date range will be imported. If your client has entered a transaction since the last import with a date prior to your date range, that transaction will not be imported into Accountant's Assistant.)
10. The Chart of Accounts Assignment dialog opens automatically during the import process. If the Office Accounting account number is valid (based on CSA account number criteria) and is mapped to an existing CSA account within this dialog, it will be automatically added to CSA upon transfer.
11. If the client has been flagged to use the Payroll Compliance module, the Payroll Item List opens. From the drop-down list on the right side, choose the CSA payroll item that corresponds to the Office Accounting Payroll Item and then click OK. You must choose a CSA item for each Office Accounting item before you can proceed.

    To prevent issues with the import, you must select a CSA payroll item of the same type (pay, withholding, or deduction) as the item in Office Accounting .

    If you do not need to import payroll data, prior to the import you may choose Setup > Miscellaneous Information from within Accountant's Assistant and mark the Do not import employees or payroll checks checkbox.

    Payroll checks entered using the Manual Payroll Checks option or the Enter Manual Payroll option in Office Accounting will be brought in as regular transactions in CSA - they will not be treated as after-the-fact payroll checks, nor will they update employee earnings. However, with Microsoft's release of Office Accounting 2007 SP 1, imported payroll checks will be treated as after-the-fact payroll checks in CSA and will update employee earnings appropriately. If you do not need to import payroll data, prior to the import you may choose Setup > Miscellaneous Information from within Accountant's Assistant and mark the Do not import employees or payroll checks checkbox.

12. Employee records imported from Office Accounting have a unique ID assigned to them by Office Accounting. This unique ID is used during the import and becomes the Employee ID in CSA. To avoid duplicating employee records in CSA, be sure to print the Employee Diagnostic Report after the retrieval is complete, and then renumber any existing employees in CSA to match the ID given to them on the Employee Diagnostic Report.
13. When the import is complete, you can choose Tasks > Process Transactions to view the imported data. You will need to replace any blank accounts with the Undistributed Account or individually edit each transaction with a blank account and provide an account number using the Edit > Edit Accounts dialog.
    Processing transactions retrieved from Microsoft Office Accounting

    You can also run the diagnostic reports from the File > Print Reports dialog to see what Chart of Accounts, Vendors, and Employees have been added, changed or deleted and you can run the Transaction Report to view or print all the transactions imported from the client.
    Reports in Accountant's Assistant for Microsoft Office Accounting data

Additional information

• Information only from the *.sbaexportdata files are imported into Accountant's Assistant.
• If a transaction uses an invalid account number (one with spaces, number signs, dollar signs, or other such characters), Accountant's Assistant uses the Undistributed Account for that transaction.
• If an account number uses any invalid characters, the account will not be added to the Chart of Accounts.
• Deposits are imported with a separate debit and credit transaction on the Checks and Deposits tab of the Tasks > Transactions window in CSA.
• Payroll checks with no reference number, with alpha reference numbers, or marked To Print are excluded from the import.
• Transactions associated with any inactive employee are omitted from the import if the Do not import inactive employees checkbox is marked on the Setup > Miscellaneous Information dialog. Note, however, that only employees with a "Date of Release" in Microsoft Office Accounting that is prior to the date range retrieved are excluded from the data import.
• Transactions associated with any inactive vendor are omitted from the import if the Do not import inactive vendors checkbox is marked on the Setup > Miscellaneous Information dialog.
• The import of classes from Office Accounting is not currently supported.
• During the import, certain types of transactions are marked with a single-letter prefix to the OA reference number, as follows:
  • C prefix, for customer payments.
  • I prefix, for invoices.
  • J prefix, for journal entries.
  • S prefix, for cash sales.
  • V prefix, for vendor bills.

Was this article helpful?

Yes No

Submit