Importing payroll information into Sage line 50

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Importing payroll information into Sage line 50

FAQ - Sage Payroll

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Exporting payroll information from Ava staff scheduling to Sage. Once this is set up it is a very simple process. However there are a number of gotchas that can trap the inexperienced or even experienced computer user.

Always back up your Sage payroll prior to attempting an import. This just does not apply to Sage - it applies to any payroll system. You can then restore and go back to where you were painlessly. Even better: backup and do a test restore. This scores 10 out of 10 on the scale of prudent approaches.
Specific to Sage - error messages and reports are saved in a folder that contains the name of the company that you are importing the payroll data to. Ava does a similar thing. Unfortunately with Sage, if you have a company name like "Blogs T/A Smith" where "T/A" is the common abbreviation for "trading as", then Sage will throw an error. There are various characters such as "/", "%", "*", ":" which cannot be used as folder names. The full list is clearly documented by Microsoft here: Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces

Why isn't it a problem using reserved characters within Ava? Ava simply filter out these characters when we are defining a path which is depenedant on them and replace them by a space.

There is one format that can work straight off the bat, but it is quite specific and it needs a couple of prerequisites. You might decide being a prudent individual that you will try an import into a new empty company. This will not work. All the employees need to be added to Sage first: this will generate a payroll number for each employee. This payroll number should be added to each employee in Ava.
Similarly all the payroll elements needed to be added in Sage first. E.g. "basic", "over time","holiday pay" etc. This will give a payroll element number. This number is the reference that Ava needs to export to Sage together with the actual rate and the number of units. We suggest there should be a one to one correlation between the names of pay elements used in Sage and the pay rate and deduction names in Ava.
You may import a "csv" file with the data and column names and columns sage requires or an xls (Excel) file with more fields that can be mapped using the "Advanced" data import menu items. Sage documentation suggest that this will work with a csv file that has a header. We have not found this to be the case: Advanced seems to need an actual xls Excel file.

What you see:

First log into Sage line 50

We will do the "basic" import first

Select file from the main menu.

Then select "Data import".

Then select " Import sage payroll data".

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 m

You will now see a wizard

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 n

If in doubt: backup!

Then next

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 o

Then next, and select the file you are going to import. We commend the you create a "SagePayrollImport" folder, either on your C drive, if you are on the only PC with Sage installed, or on a secure network share if appropriate.

Import file has Header row should be checked (ticked).

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 d

Now next

You should get a progress bar and then a window saying that "x" records have imported correctly.

Advanced Import

If your import file does not conform exactly to the Sage specifiation (this includes the exact header titles and number of columns) the you can do an import of a "csv" file. However in the current version of Sage 50, it appears that a "csv" file actually has to be an "xls" excel file.

Select file from the main menu

then Advanced Data import

then Import sage payroll data

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 a

Now we have another wizard (just diregard the bit about a csv file)

Do Backup!

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 b

Then click next

Select the data you want to import:

Employee Payments (Hours and Rates)

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 c

Then click next

Import file has Header row should be checked (ticked).

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 d

You will now see a page which has a list of four "payroll" fields

If when you click on the import field the drop down list id empty, then a number of things can be wrong.

1. You have no employees set up

2. You have no payment categories set up

3. You are trying to import a csv file - and your version of sage only does xls (in this case just open the file to be imported in excel and save as Excel 97-2003 Work book (*.xls). Go back and re-select (browse) the file making sure you have the browser filter set to XLS file type or you wont even see it.

Importing payroll information into Sage line 50 e