Importing purchase orders

You can start using Scoro without importing any historical data. However, if you want to compare your previous years' results, it is possible to import already issued purchase orders (POs). There are many fields that you can import, but we recommend keeping it simple. If possible, stick to importing the total sum of the PO without specifying the exact services/products purchased. Add detailed information about individual products/services sold only if it’s really necessary to get reporting on the service level. 

It is also possible to update already existing POs. The safest way to achieve that is to first export the existing POs, modify the needed fields, and import them back to Scoro (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 (Purchase orders).
  
  Alternatively, you can create a new purchase order 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 purchase orders:
  
  • Document number – number of the purchase order. Only numbers can be used (not letters).
  • Date of issue (doc_date) – the date when you sent out the PO.
    • Possible date formats:
      dd.mm.yyyy
      dd-mm-yyyy
      yyyy/mm/dd
      yyyy-mm-dd (recommended format)
      mm/dd/yyyy
  • Supplier – the company or person the PO is addressed to. 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 3-letter combination (e.g. EUR, USD, GBP), when adding a currency. The list of currencies is available under Settings > Sales and finance > Currencies. Enable all currencies you use before importing POs.  
  • Quantity (amount) – how many units were ordered.
  • 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 PO (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 POs. If there are several tax rates on one PO (e.g. one product is ordered with a 20% tax rate and another one with 0%), make sure to first enable line-based tax rates in Scoro. 
    If you integrate Scoro with your accounting software (Xero, Quickbooks), make sure you have initiated the initial synchronization before importing the documents (old tax rates in Scoro will be archived and the ones in the accounting system will be used instead).
• If you wish to import PO with all line items, each product/service line on the PO should be added to a separate line in the .xls file. On each line, keep the general information about each PO as it is (e.g. document number, document date, etc.) and modify only product/service-specific information. 
  Make sure that the information on one PO is entered into the consecutive lines (e.g. the first two lines are about the first PO, the next four lines about the second PO, and so forth), do not mix the lines of different POs.
  PO 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 PO (and the specific services ordered are not that important), just add one row about each PO to the import file, specifying the PO number, price, and other mandatory fields. This is the recommended (simpler) option. Note that there is no need to add information about product name, code, or group.
  If we take a look at the same example, the PO could have been imported also this way (quantity equals 1, unit price equals total sum (€220) of the PO before tax and discount): 
  

In addition to the mandatory fields there are other generic fields that might be helpful: 

• Delivery date – the date when the goods are delivered.
  • Possible date formats:
    dd.mm.yyyy
    dd-mm-yyyy
    yyyy/mm/dd
    yyyy-mm-dd (recommended format)
    mm/dd/yyyy
• Project name – if the PO 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 PO import file must match in order for the PO to be linked with the correct project.
• Contact person – if you wish to define the supplier-side contact person for the PO, fill out this field (add the first and last name of the contact). If this contact already exists in Scoro, the PO 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 PO. 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.
• Status (status_name) – to define the status (in which stage the PO is), the status needs to exist in Scoro. You can predefine/customize the PO statuses on your site, just go to Settings > Site settings > Statuses. If you don’t specify the status in the import file (or don’t import this column at all), the default status of a new PO will be used.
• 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).
• Is sent – indicates whether the PO has been sent out to the supplier or not. Fill in the field with '1' if PO is sent, add a '0' if not. 

Detailed information to add only if you are interested in importing all the 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 PO. 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 PO 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).

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 POs and add new products/services during the import or not.

• Mapping phase:
  Map the columns you filled out in the .xls file 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 database during PO import:
  If you are only interested in the total sum of the PO, 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 PO 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 POs. That way, you can add a lot more information to Scoro about products/services than with the PO 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 PO import file.
  
  
• Update an existing PO or add a new PO:
  If you are importing new POs (the very first import) just deselect the option Update already existing items.
  
  It is also possible to update the POs already entered to Scoro. Just make sure the PO number or PO ID in the import file matches the document number in Scoro (you can see the PO ID by exporting POs) 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.