This is where you set up the formats in which to export CSV files to your accountancy package.
CSV stands for Comma Separated Variable. A CSV file for your customers, for example, might
contain on each line a customer reference, then a comma, then the company name, then a
comma, then the first line of his address, and so on. Because alphabetic strings like address
lines can also contain commas themselves, we sometimes place a string inside quotation marks.
There would be as many lines as there were customers. So it might look like:
AH 001,Arthur Higginbottom,45 East Green,Horsham,W.Sussex,GU7 8XX,0172 345 6789,Arnold Wimsey
BOW,Bow Street Gunners,"23 East Alley, Bow St.",Penge,London,SE26 3GH,020 7543 9876,Phil Watkins
GOR,Gordon Graphics,135 Hartley Rd,Brentford,Middlesex,TW7 8AB,020 8998 7654,Gordon Harris
HAM,Hampton Print,12 Station Road,Hampton,Middlesex,TW9 6ZZ,020 8941 0952,Mr Martin Talbot
MARP,Marple Lighting Ltd,"49 The Mews,",Chorlton,Lancs.,CL8 6TY,0151-678 4637,Mr. J. Marple
This kind of format is understood by many different programs, including Microsoft Excel, where
this example would look far more orderly! :
|
AH 001
|
Arthur Higginbottom
|
45 East Green
|
Horsham
|
W.Sussex
|
GU7 8XX
|
0172 345 6789
|
Arnold Wimsey
|
|
BOW
|
Bow Street Gunners
|
23 East Alley, Bow St.
|
Penge
|
London
|
SE26 3GH
|
020 7543 9876
|
Phil Watkins
|
|
GOR
|
Gordon Graphics
|
135 Hartley Rd
|
Brentford
|
Middlesex
|
TW7 8AB
|
020 8998 7654
|
Gordon Harris
|
|
HAM
|
Hampton Print
|
12 Station Road
|
Hampton
|
Middlesex
|
TW9 6ZZ
|
020 8941 0952
|
Martin Talbot
|
|
MARP
|
Marple Lighting Ltd
|
49 The Mews,
|
Chorlton
|
Lancs.
|
CL8 6TY
|
0151-678 4637
|
Mr. J. Marple
|
Precisely what goes into which column is usually part of the requirement of the accounts
package. You will have to find out how your accounts package wants it configured.
Pressing the Fields button for a file gives something like:
This looks a little daunting, but is really not too difficult. The actual field definitions (i.e. what goes
in each column) are on the left. On the right hand side is a list of codes you can use in this
screen.
In this example, which is for a well known accounting package, the output would be for each
transaction something like:
"SI",1282,1000,1,310108,872,"Leaflets for show",1266.35,"T1",221.61
To go through this in order,
· the first field is a literal "SI" (which stands for Sales Invoice in the accounts package)
· the second field was ==2 which is one of the codes on the right hand side and translates to
the job number, which in this case was 1282.
· Field 3 is a literal 1000, which was the default general ledger code for sales
· Field 4 is a literal 1 which was the department code
· Field 5 is ==D1. Looking at the list of codes we see that ==D codes are all dates. ==D1 is
expressed in the form ddmmyy so we get the date 310108.
· Field 6 is ==9 which in the list of codes is the invoice number, in this case 872
· Field 7 is ==019. If you look at the codes you will see that this means the first 19 characters
of the title of the job.
· Field 8 is ==6 which is the net total of the job, in this case 1288.35
· Field 9 is T==V. T is not a code, but ==V is the vat code, in this case "1" so this gives "T1"
· Field 10 is ==7 which is the tax amount, 221.61
For advanced users there is a further refinement, the transform table. This lets you transform a
field from Printpak into a different form suitable for another system. For example consider a local
authority where nominal ledger codes required by the accounts department are long, but the
printing department only use the last 3 digits, which they store in the first 3 digits of the job
reference. You might set up a transform table similar to this:
To achieve the required output we can set up a field containing:
==3@0103~A
At first sight this looks terribly complicated, but considering it character by character it becomes
much clearer. We start with the job reference:
==3,
which might have a value of, say, 285AFC. We said that they keep the first 3 characters
reserved for this purpose, so we truncate it to the 1st 3 digits by putting:
@0103
which gives 285. Now to look this up in the transform table with letter A by putting:
~A
and read off the answer A/39/12285
That really wasn't too bad!
