Data Collection

The purpose of the data collection is to establish the total spend for
your organisation, and identify the items which were purchased.  
This is achieved by collecting data from both the Accounts Payable (AP)
and the Purchase Order systems (PO), plus additional supporting
information.

Five types of files are supported:

1. Supplier.
2. Purchase Order.
3. Invoice.
4. Catalogue.
5. Contract.

The columns supported in each of these files, and the meanings of these
columns, are described in detail in the next section.

A row in a typical PO file gives the date, order number, supplier,
product part number, product description, quantity ordered, unit price, and total.  

Product information is not normally available in AP systems, so a row
in a typical AP file consists of just the data, invoice reference number,
supplier, and amount.  These two files -- the PO file and the AP file -- are
are the minimum requirement for a run of SpendInsight.

Additional supporting information helps SpendInsight establish the true identity
of products (catalogue or contract data) or suppliers (supplier information
database).  Often this supporting information will be a part of a separate
extract.  SpendInsight is fully able to link data together from multiple sources.

The standard input data format for SpendInsight is CSV, where:

• Each line of the file contains a record.
• The fields of a record are separated by a comma.
• If the value in a field contains a new line character or a comma then the value must be enclosed in quotes.
• If the value in a field contains a quote then the quote must be escaped by repeating it.
• The first record contains your column names.

 DateOrdered,OrderNo,SupplierName,SupPartNo,Description,Quantity,UnitPrice,GrossTotal

 25/1/10,o1,ACME,aws,ACME standard widget,5,£3,£15

 25/1/10,o2,ACME,aw2,'ACME widget, type 2',5,'£3,000','£15,000'

 25/1/10,o3,ACME,aw-s,'ACME 'super' widget', type 1,5,£3,£15