An admin user can either manually import transactions via Trading Programs' user interface or use SFTP to securely transfer files to Trading Programs. This article covers how to import transactions manually.

Firstly, you will need to click on Config at the top of the page and then on Transactions in the drop-down menu. This will take you to the transactions page.

Clicking on the CSV template link (as shown in the screenshot below) will download a template into which you can enter multiple transaction lines.

In this template, you will be required to enter the correct information for each transaction line under the header row that is already populated.

Once completed and saved, simply click the Browse button and select the file you wish to upload into Trading Programs.

Manual import settings

When you have populated your transactions import file, you will select some additional options that determine how the transaction data will be imported.

If you are using the 'Enable B2B deals' functionality, you will be able to select whether the import data is owned by your organization or one of your trading partners. If the data is owned by one of your trading partners, uncheck the ‘channel transactions‘ box (where ‘channel‘ is the name of your organization's channel), and select the transaction owner for the file.

You can select the flow of goods for the imported transactions - that is, whether the import represents sales or purchase transactions. This will default to the flow of goods setting for your channel. The flow of goods is used for reconciliation of transactions to program lines.

The 'Includes trading partner references' (where 'trading partner' could be supplier, customer etc.) option indicates whether Trading Programs should expect the Trading Partner to be populated or not, whereas 'Allow duplicates' indicates whether Trading Programs should prevent any duplicate transaction lines from being imported or not.

Finally, the 'Agreement ID' (e.g. D00000001) and 'Advised earnings' columns allow you to import transactions with Advised earnings. These columns are mandatory but can be left blank. Once uploaded the advised earnings can be reviewed via the Program earnings report.

Once complete, click the Import button (see screenshot below).

Trading Programs will then validate that the data values provided are in an acceptable format to be imported into the system.

If the transactions are valid, your transactions data from the file will be imported into Trading Programs. If it is invalid, Trading Programs will display an Import results message displaying rejected rows or reasons why the file was not processed (as shown in the example below).

Transaction data errors may arise from missing information for particular transactions, or from duplicate transactions. A transaction is considered a duplicate if it has the exact same data for the transaction date, dimensions, units, value, currency, and external reference as another transaction. If any one of these does not match another transaction, then it will not be considered a duplicate. Please note that the Interface date of two lines can be different and they can still be considered duplicates.

Reconciliation

When transactions are imported into the system, Trading Programs will automatically run a reconciliation task for the new transactions. When reconciling transactions, Trading Programs attempts to match the new transaction data to the dimension items that already exist in the system, based on the references that have been specified within your transactions files.

A reconciliation task can also be triggered in one of two ways: either it can be reconciled automatically by Trading Programs (as pre-determined by a fixed schedule), or the reconciliation process can be manually triggered by an admin user.

Automatic reconciliation

An admin user is able to enable and configure the automatic reconciliation process by clicking on Config at the top of the page and then on Processing in the drop-down menu.

Clicking on the Reconciliation tab will take you to a new page where you will notice a panel on the right-hand side containing the reconciliation process settings that can be enabled and configured according to your business needs.

Manual reconciliation

As an admin user, you can also manually trigger the running of the reconciliation process, if required. To do this, you will need to click on Config at the top of the page and then on Transactions in the drop-down menu.

In the Reconcile transaction lines section on the right of your page (as shown in the screenshot below), simply select All or one of the available Trading Partners from the list.

You also have the option to tick the Allow duplicates box. When "Allow duplicates" is unticked (the default behavior) the system will prevent an imported transaction line from being reconciled if it is a duplicate of an existing transaction line, as defined above. If a CSV has multiple new transactions which are duplicates of one another, one will be imported into the system, and the rest of the duplicates will not. These duplicates can be found in the CSV which lists unreconciled transactions, available after an attempted import. When "Allow duplicates" is enabled, the system will not prevent duplicate unreconciled transaction lines from being reconciled.

It may be possible that the configuration of your channel is more lenient in regards to duplicate transactions – for example, a transaction reference may not be required, and thus any transactions which happen to have the same data should be counted. It's because of instances like these that the Allow duplicates box exists at all.

Finally, click the Reconcile button, triggering a message stating “The Reconciliation Process has been queued and will run shortly” to be displayed in the top right-hand corner of the page (as shown below).

If you are experiencing issues when attempting to reconcile transactions please see the troubleshooting article.

If you would like more information on this topic, or have any queries, then please book an appointment with a member of our Customer Success team.