Lightyear - Exporting to Other

Choosing "Other" as your Inventory Software

While Lightyear supports many different types of inventory software through a predefined export, you may be using one that isn't yet formally supported. Well, good news! If your inventory software supports either a .csv or .txt upload, you can now create a custom export in Lightyear.

Before you start creating your custom export, make sure you know what layout the require for a successful upload. It may not be the same for each inventory software, so you may need to check with them to see what they require.

Setup in Lightyear

First, you need to switch on the Inventory export feature, to learn how to do so, click here. Once activated, head to Settings > Inventory Settings  and select Other from the software dropdown.

Default Product Unit

Now we want to define the default product units. Some POS/Inventory Systems require this to always be Units, as they perform the case/pack size calculations themselves. If you are unsure as to what is best for you, please contact your POS/Inventory System's support team to confirm. 

To configure this, head to Inventory / POS Settings and select "Edit".



Once done, select the Default Unit that should be used when adding bills to Inventory. This can be what you primarily receive from your suppliers, but can be changed at an individual product level (and Lightyear will remember what you've set for future bills!).


Mandatory Export Field

By default, Lightyear will prevent you from exporting if your bills are missing a Case Qty  or Unit Type, but this can be changed!

In Inventory Settings, click into the Inventory/POS Settings option. 

Here you can mix and match the Mandatory Export Fields between these options:
  1. Case Qty
  2. Unit Type
  3. POS Code

Click confirm.

Any bills added to inventory from this point will check that the mandatory fields are met.

These will be flagged in Panel 1 with a warning icon . Panel 2 will highlight the fields with mandatory data missing, and users won't be able to export without adding in the missing information.

Once you have made the necessary adjustments, click Save and you will then be able to export.

Inventory/POS Supplier Cards


In most cases your POS/Inventory software will need some way of knowing which Supplier the products you are sending them belong to. We manage this using Supplier Cards. At a very basic level, a Supplier Card consists of a Supplier Name, and a Card ID. Again, you'll want to confirm with your POS/Inventory Software provider as to how they want this information from us. Ideally they will be able to assist you in putting together a CSV file that contains your supplier list that can be uploaded to Lightyear.

To upload a Supplier file to Lightyear, head to Inventory / POS Settings and select "Edit"



From here, select "Upload CSV File". Select the file you want to upload. If your file has a header (a label at the top of each column identifying the contents below) select yes when prompted. 



Now that we have the Supplier Cards in Lightyear, we just need to link them to the Lightyear Supplier. To do so, head to Suppliers and select the Green pencil icon. 



Under "Supplier rules", select the correct Supplier Card from the "Inventory Supplier" dropdown, and hit Update. 



Create your custom export

Because each POS/Inventory System is different, we need to define the values that are exported, as well as their position within the CSV or .txt file. 

This can be configured in "Export Mappings"



The below outlines the configurable values.

  • Export Fields - These are the fields that will be exported to your .csv or .txt file. Move these across by selecting the field you want in Other Fields, and click the left pointing arrow. You can reorder these using the up/down arrows to the left. The Column letter shows which column this will populate on your csv
  • Export File Type - A drop down to select whether we export your file as a .txt or .csv. The type you choose will depend on what your inventory software requires.
  • Include a header row - Check this box if you want the export to include the name of the field in the top row of your csv
  • Separate each bill with an empty row - Pretty self explanatory, on your csv we'll add a blank row after each invoice
  • Select 2 decimal places for line items - Exports Line Item and Total amounts to two decimal places. Note that all other values will still be calculated to four decimal places.
Don't worry if you've forgotten a field! You'll only be charged a credit for the initial export of a file, so feel free to go in and change the layout and re-export the same batch until you feel you have it right. Batches can be re-exported from the Archive as seen here.

Using a Template

If you have multiple Lightyear accounts, set up to use the same Export Field format, you can reach out to our Support team and they can create a Template for you to use.

Once created, this will appear in the dropdown menu in the top left of the screen:

If you need to make any adjustments to the fields, add in any extras or apply a Header Override, do this as you normally would without a template and click Save. This change will apply to the Lightyear account you're currently logged in to. If any adjustments need to be made to the Template overall, you can ask our Support team to change this for you.
If any changes are made to the Template, you will need to go into Export Mappings and re-select the Template to apply the changes.

Exporting Bills

To learn how to send bills to the Inventory tab, and to generate an export file, please have a read of this knowledgebase article.




      

    Check out our
    Product Blog Series
    to stay up to date

      • Related Articles

      • Choosing Other as your Accounting software

        While Lightyear supports many different types of accounting software, either through a direct API or a predefined export, you may be using one that isn't yet formally supported. Well, good news! If your accounting software supports either a .csv or ...

      • Xero Integration Setup Guide

        Connecting to Xero Because Xero and Lightyear are both cloud-based, set-up and connectivity between the two systems is seamless. Here's how. From the Navigation Pane, head over to Settings > Accounting Software > select Xero from the dropdown menu > ...

      • Error Messages Returned from Sage Intacct upon Export

        Lightyear has a ton of built in validation checks to ensure the data is correct in Lightyear before trying to send the bill and information to Sage Intacct. However, there are occasions when the export fails and Lightyear displays the reason for the ...

      • Sage Intacct Integration Setup Guide

        Connecting to Sage Intacct As Sage Intacct and Lightyear are both cloud-based, set up and connectivity between the systems is seamless. Here's how! Prerequisites Subscribe to Web Services You will need to add your Company's Sender ID to the Sage ...

      • How to Export to OrderMate using the 'Other' Export Format

        First, you need to switch on the Inventory export feature, to learn how to do so, click here. Then go to 'Inventory Settings' section of the app, select 'Other' from the Inventory / POS Software dropdown. Now, click Edit next to Export Mappings. Use ...