Importing sales invoices

You can start using Scoro without importing any historical data. However, if you want to compare your financial results to the previous period(s), you can import already issued invoices to Scoro. Even though there are many fields you can import, we recommend to keep it simple. If possible, stick to importing the overall sum of the invoice without specifying the services/products sold. Add detailed information about the individual products/services sold only if it’s really necessary to get granular reporting on service level. 

It is also possible to update already existing invoices via import. The safest way is to first export the existing invoices, modify the fields needed, and then import them (select the option Update already existing items in the import window). 

TIPS FOR PREPARING THE IMPORT FILE 

• Download the example file and follow its structure. You can find the example file by going to the Import/Export module and selecting the relevant import page (Quotes, Invoices, Bills, Purchase orders).
  
  Alternatively, you can create a new invoice to Scoro and export it to understand exactly what columns need to be filled out to cover your business needs. This is the recommended way as there may be several columns in the example file that are not relevant to your business. 
• Mandatory fields that need to be filled out to import invoices:
  • Document number – number of the invoice. Note! This field can contain only numbers. If your invoice numbers include letters or other symbols (and you need to store this information), you should add this information to the doc_description field or create a separate text type custom field in Scoro. Then add a new column to the .xls file (for the historic invoice number), and fill out the document number column (add a new numbering for invoices).  
  • Date of issue (doc_date)
  • Due date (doc_deadline)
    • Possible date formats:
      dd.mm.yyyy
      dd-mm-yyyy
      yyyy/mm/dd
      yyyy-mm-dd (recommended format)
      mm/dd/yyyy
  • Client (payer) – the company or person who pays for the invoice. If the contact already exists in Scoro, the document is automatically linked to the relevant contact. If the contact does not exist in Scoro, a new company is created during the import.
  • Currency – make sure to use the correct three-letter combination (e.g. EUR, USD, GBP) when adding a currency. The list of currencies is available in Settings > Sales and finance > Currencies. Activate all in-use currencies in Scoro before importing invoices.  
  • Quantity (amount) – the number of units sold.
  • Unit price (price) – price per one unit without tax (and before discount).
  • Tax rate code (vat_code) or tax rate percentage (line_vat_percent) of the invoice (or individual service/product). Only one of them is needed. We advise using tax codes (you may use multiple codes for the same percentage, e.g. 0% for Tax Except, 0% for Sales Tax on Import). Make sure you have entered your tax rates to Scoro (and the tax codes in Scoro match the ones in the import file) before importing invoices. If there are several tax rates on one invoice (e.g. one product is sold with a 20% tax rate and another one with 0%), make sure to first enable line-based tax rates in Scoro.  
• If you wish to import an invoice with all line items, each product/service line on the invoice should be added to a separate line in the .xls file. On each line, keep the general information about each invoice as it is (e.g. document number, document date, etc.) and modify only product/service-specific information. Invoice 123 contains 2 line items (2 hours of Analysis and 3 hours of Consultancy). The total sum is €100 (50*2) for Analysis and €120 (40*3) for Consultancy. 
  
• If you are interested only in the total sum of the invoice (and the specific services sold are not that important), just add one row about each invoice to the import file, specifying the invoice number, price, and other mandatory fields. Note that there is no need to add information about product name, code, or group.
  The invoice can be imported also in the way shown below (quantity equals 1, unit price equals total sum (€220) of the invoice before tax and discount):
  
• Other generic fields that might be helpful: 
  • Project name – if the invoice should be linked to a project, make sure you first create/import the relevant project to Scoro. The project name in Scoro and in the invoice import file must match in order for the invoice to be linked with the correct project.
  • Contact person – if you wish to define the client-side contact person for the invoice, fill out this field (add the first and last name of the contact). If this contact already exists in Scoro, the invoice is automatically linked to that person. If the contact does not exist in Scoro, a new contact is created during the import.
  • Owner name – an employee at your company who is the author of the invoice. This employee must already have a user account in Scoro. Add the first and last name of the employee to the owner_name column (exactly like written on their Scoro user profile). If it's not important to specify the author, you can just ignore that column. In that case, the person doing the import is added as the author.
  • Discount – the overall document discount in percentages. E.g. add the number 10 if you want to indicate that the customer got a 10% discount. Note! The discount sum is subtracted from the unit price (the calculation is made during the import in Scoro; there is no need to define the discount sum in the import file, just the percentage).
  • Payment type – indicates how (the payment method) the customer paid for the invoice. Payment types are predefined in Scoro (Bank transfer, Cash, Card payment, Barter, Check, Credit), use one from the list.  
  • Is sent – indicates if the invoice has been sent to the customer or not. Fill out the field with 1 if the invoice has been sent and a 0 if not. 

• Detailed information to add only if you are interested in importing all line items
  • Product group, product code, product name – if you have predefined products in Scoro and they all have unique names, you can fill out the product name field only (and delete the other two). Scoro automatically adds the product group and code to the invoice. If the products in different product groups happen to have the same name, make sure to specify the product group for all products in the file. If you haven’t predefined products in Scoro, you might want to do that first (or add products during the invoice import. See the section above for more information).
  • Line comment (product or service description) –  is used to add details about a specific service.
  • Unit – unit name in the import file must match the unit name in Scoro. You can check the list of predefined units or add new units to Scoro under Settings > Sales and finance > Units.
  • Accounting object – to import accounting objects, first enable them in Scoro. You can, but don’t have to predefine accounting objects in Scoro. If the accounting object does not exist in Scoro, it is automatically created during the import.
  • Line discount percent – if you wish to use line-based discounts, first enable them in Scoro under Settings > Sales and finance > Discounts. If you want to indicate that the customer got a 10% discount on a particular service, add the number 10 to the line_discount_percent field. Note! The discount sum is subtracted from the unit price (the calculation is made during the import in Scoro, there is no need to define the discount sum in the import file, just the percentage).
  • Line cost – use it to add the cost of the service (e.g. the buying price or internal labor cost).
  • Supplier name – if the service was outsourced, you can define the supplier. If the supplier already exists in Scoro, the invoice is automatically linked to the supplier, if not, a new contact is added to Scoro during the import.
  • Doer name – if the service was provided in-house, you can define the name of the employee who delivered the job. This employee must already have a user account in Scoro. Add the first and last name of the employee to the doer_name column (exactly like written on their Scoro user profile).
  • Is_internal – if you wish to indicate that the service was provided in-house, add a 1, and a 0 if it was outsourced.  

TIPS FOR IMPORTING THE FILE TO SCORO  
After you have prepared the file, import it to Scoro, map the fields and decide whether you want to update the existing invoices and add new products/services during the import or not.

• Mapping phase:
  Map the columns you filled out in Excel to the fields in Scoro. If you have used the column headers from the template file, most fields are mapped automatically.
  
• Adding new products/services to the product list during the invoice import:
  If you are only interested in the total sum of the invoice, there is no need to add any products/services to Scoro during the import (simply deselect the option Add new products).
  
  If you are interested in importing line items (product/service lines), it is possible to add new products/services to Scoro during the invoice import. In that case, if a product described in the import file is not found in Scoro, it is automatically created during the import (product name, product group, product code, and description will be added to your product database). For that, select the option Add new products. 
  
  However, the recommended option is to first import/add the products and services to Scoro and then import the invoices. That way, you can add a lot more information to Scoro about products/services than with the invoice import. In that case, deselect the option to add new products. Also, make sure that the product names in Scoro match the ones used in the invoice import file.  
  
  
• Update existing invoices or add new invoices:
  If you are importing new invoices (the very first import) just deselect the option Update already existing items. It is also possible to update the invoices already entered to Scoro. Just make sure the Invoice number or Invoice ID in the import file matches the document number in Scoro (you can see the invoice ID by exporting invoices) and select the update option.
  
  
• Resolving errors:
  Scoro will notify you once the import is complete. The lines containing errors are not imported, plus you get an error report indicating the issues. Just download the file, make the needed corrections in the file and import it again.