Excel to S100C – Changes!

Many of our clients use the very helpful and efficient trick of copying data from Excel into the data grids of Sage 100 Contractor (S100C). For example, a user may gather data using a time clock system that generates a CSV file with payroll information. Then, when preparing payroll to process in Sage, that time clock data is cut and pasted directly into the 5-5-1 (Daily Payroll) screen to be processed normally in S100C; great time saver.     

Since its inception as a Windows application, Sage has always treated the process of cutting and pasting from Excel to Sage with the requirement that all fields in the target Sage data grid must be included in the source data to be pasted properly in the Sage data grid.

For example, consider that you are collecting daily time in an Excel worksheet (instead of our fully integrated FIT System) and the data you are capturing is Employee, Job, and hours.   The columns in S100C – in order from left to right – are Employee, Description, Service Order #, Job, Equipment Repaired, Locality, Certified, Phase, Cost Code, Pay Type,  Paygroup, Pay Rate, and Hours.    So the format of your import data must be “Employee, Blank, Blank, Job, Blank,  Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Hours“.  Columns after your last populated column can be ignored.   The source data must be provided with all the columns, including blanks, whether or not the column is visible in the Sage data grid.

In a recent version of S100C 26.x, it seems this logic has changed!  When data is copied out of an Excel spreadsheet and pasted into a Sage data grid, we’re seeing different behaviors and they’re inconsistent within S100C from module to module.    Some examples include the Daily Payroll data grid (5-5-1), the Work Order detail grid (11-2), and the PO detail data grid (6-6-1).  Some require the blanks, others do not.

There may be others, as well, but this is what’s seen so far. We don’t have enough examples yet to provide a nice resolution that will work everywhere.  If you use the Excel cut-and-paste process into S100C, the behavior may be different as of your latest upgrade.

For now, we will have to resolve these issues as they come up since the behaviors are inconsistent.   Please contact us if you have an issue and would like assistance! – LAW