Data Collection

Send cloudBuy your AP (Accounts Payable) and PO (Purchase Order) data so we can identifty the items you've been purchasing, and we'll start finding your organisation's savings.

Input files

Five types of files are supported:

  • Supplier.
  • Purchase Order.
  • Invoice.
  • Catalogue.
  • Contract.
 

The columns supported in each of these files and the meanings of these columns are described in detail below.

Purchase order data

A row in a typical PO file gives:

  • date,
  • order number,
  • supplier,
  • product part number,
  • product description,
  • quantity ordered,
  • unit price, and
  • total.

Accounts payable (invoice) data

Product information is not normally available in AP systems, so a row in a typical AP file consists of just:

  • the date,
  • invoice reference number,
  • supplier, and
  • amount.

However, where you do have line item detail in AP data, full use can be made of this.

Minimum requirements

These two files – the PO file and the AP file – are the minimum requirement for a run of SpendInsight.

Additional data

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.

Simple CSV file format

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.

For example, the first few records of a PO file might look like this: 

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