TRANXACT.AI Help

Importing a spreadsheet

Excel, CSV and PDF into any list screen — how the columns are matched, what is checked, and why it posts through the API.

Every list screen in the platform accepts an import. It is not a separate migration tool for a handful of tables; it is a drawer on the screen you are already looking at, and it loads into that screen’s records.

  1. Open the screen the records belong on and choose Import.
  2. Drop in an .xlsx, .xls, .csv or .pdf file. Legacy .xls files are read directly — there is no need to re-save them as anything.
  3. Check the column mapping. Columns are matched to fields by name first, and anything unmatched is offered as a dropdown so you can point it at the right field yourself.
  4. Read the preview. It shows what will be created, row by row, with the rows that will fail and why.
  5. Import. Rows are posted through the same API the screens use.

Why it goes through the API

The import does not write to the tables. It calls the same endpoints the console calls, which means every rule that protects a record typed by hand also protects a record that arrived in a spreadsheet: a journal must balance, a duplicate supplier invoice is refused, a lot-controlled item demands its lot number, a closed period rejects the posting, and the audit log records it.

This is slower than a bulk insert, and deliberately so. An import that bypassed the rules would be a way of getting data into the platform that the platform cannot stand behind.

PDFs

A PDF is read for tables — a supplier statement, a bank listing, a printed report. What is found is shown for confirmation before anything is created, because table extraction from a PDF is inference and inference should be looked at.

Grouped documents

Where a document has a header and lines, the spreadsheet carries one row per line and a column that says which document the row belongs to. Rows sharing that value become one document with several lines, not several documents.

From a connected drive, and on a schedule

The file does not have to come off your machine. Any list screen can import from a connected drive, and the same import can be set to run in the background or on a schedule — which is how a file that a bank or a supplier drops into a folder every morning becomes records without anybody opening it. See Connected drives.