CSV import: Budget won't import

Importing budgets into Sage Intacct can save a lot of time, unless the budget is not imported successfully. Use the following actions to improve your budget import process.

Reasons budgets won't import

Budgets can fail to import for a number of reasons. Some of the most common reasons are:

• A budget ID has not been created for the budget you're importing.
• Reporting periods haven't been created for the budget you're importing.
• The reporting periods aren't set up to be used for budgeting.
• The budget contains duplicate line items.

  Budgets won't import if they contain duplicate line items.

• The budget import template hasn't been correctly formatted.

Before you import a budget

Before you import your budget, be sure you have done the following.

Create a Budget ID

Before importing a budget, use the General Ledger to create a Budget ID for the budget you plan to import. If you do not create the budget ID before an import, an error message occurs referencing an invalid Budget ID.

Once the new Budget ID has been created, you can then import your Budget Details.

For more information, see Create a budget.

Create reporting periods

Create reporting periods before importing a budget. For more information about reporting periods, go to Create reporting periods.

Reporting periods used in a budget must be marked as Use for Budgeting and can't overlap with another reporting period.

If the reporting period already exists, and you receive an error message when attempting to import, check your reporting period dates, as well as the reporting period in your import file. The periods used for budgeting may be overlapping, causing an import error.

Set up reporting periods to be used for budgeting

For any time frame, only one reporting period can be used for budgeting. To set up a reporting period to be used for budgeting, or to verify that time frames are not overlapping, view the Reporting periods list and make changes as necessary.

To set up a reporting period to be used for budgeting:

1. Go to Reports > Setup > More > Reporting periods.

2. Select Edit next to the appropriate period in the list.
3. Select the Use for budgeting box.
4. Adjust the Start and End dates, if needed.
5. Select Save.

Remove duplicate line items

Line items that have the same dimensional values but different budget amounts cannot be imported.

For example, if you have two line items that have the same ACCT_NO, DEPT_ID, PROJECTID, and EMPLOYEEID, but different budget amounts, when the file is imported, you get Error BL05000161 because Intacct has no way of knowing which line contains the correct budget information.

To avoid this error, delete duplicate line items, or ensure that all line items have different dimensional values.

Best practices

The following best practices will help you prepare your CSV file for upload.

1. From the Import company data list, download a template.
   • Use the latest template, especially following a product release.
   • Use the correct template for the area in which you want to upload information. Different templates organize different types of information. Use a template specifically for the information you need to upload.
2. Use the column descriptions as a guide to entering information.
   • Read the header descriptions in the template.
     The header description is the cell under the header row that explains what type of information is accepted for each column. If you enter information in the wrong format, or with an incorrect accepted value, it will cause an error in your upload.
   • Enter required information.
     Some data is required, while others aren’t. Read the description field to determine which information is required. If you don’t enter required information, your upload will fail.
3. Save the file as a comma-separated value, or CSV, file. If saving from Excel, you could choose the comma-delimited file type.

The file will have the file extension .csv after you save it.
Leave the file open until your import is successful. Excel can sometimes reformat the file if you close it before the import is successful.

Common errors

You can avoid common errors by following the suggestions in this table:

Recommendation	Directions	Notes
Format fields as text.	In Microsoft Excel: Select all cells. Right-click and select Format Cells. On the Number tab, select Text and select OK. Save the file.
Change any date to a short date format.	In Microsoft Excel: Select a column of dates. Right-click and select Format Cells. On the Number tab, select Date and select the short date format. Save the file.	Short date format: 3/15/2009
Remove spaces from your data.	In Microsoft Excel: Select a range of cells. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, select Find & Select and select Replace. In the Find what box, press the space bar once. Leave the Replace with box blank. Select Replace All. A prompt opens telling you how many spaces have been removed. Save the file.	Spaces included in a memo field don’t need to be removed. However, be sure that there are no spaces at the beginning or end of the memo. Trailing spaces can cause an upload to fail.
Remove all commas from the file.		Since the import file is a CSV, a Comma-Separated Values file (sometimes known as a comma-delimited file) any commas in the data automatically shifts information into other fields. This will either cause incorrect information to be imported, or cause the whole import to fail. There are several ways to avoid this issue: Never use commas in numeric amounts. Don’t use commas in any text fields. Put text fields in quotes if you must use commas in text fields.
Make sure that all headers in your file exactly match the headers in the downloaded template.		Don’t change the content of the header. Headers map to fields in Intacct. Changing the headers means that your data won’t up load to the correct locations. You can change the order of the columns in your CSV template. Changing the order of the columns doesn’t affect upload.
ID fields must contain exact references to customers or suppliers.		ID fields are case-sensitive. For example, supplier ID "ven100" and supplier ID "VEN100" aren’t the same. You must enter the ID exactly as it appears in the Intacct system or you run the risk of mismatching transactions to the wrong supplier or customer, or having the upload fail.
When referencing a supplier, customer, term, budget, etc., what you are referencing must already exist in Intacct.		For example, if you’re uploading transactions for a particular supplier, if the supplier doesn't exist as a supplier in Intacct before your upload, your upload will fail. This doesn’t apply when creating new entries for customers or suppliers using the import process.
Number line items sequentially.		For more information about to correctly number line items, see CSV import: Line number examples.