No Item List, Customer List and Vendor List?

[nutzlichsein]

Hi all. I am currently looking for a new erp system that is simple enough for my company and I am trying LedgerSMB. I do have some questions regarding LedgerSMB . I am using docker version, and latest version of 1.12.9

1. I can't find out how to look at Item List, Customer List, Vendor List. I can make item, but I can't see the item list and the same goes for contact list. this is so confusing. anybody knows how?
2. still about Item, Customer and Vendor. I can import item or service. but I can't import Customers and Vendors... anybody knows how to do it?
3. When making a new contact as person, I can't generate control code if I don't input their ID number and their birthday date. I know I can just type any number and birthdate. but that's confusing that such infos are mandatory. I think that's it for my confusion with Ledger SMB.

thank you for any help/info

[ehuelsmann]

• When making a new contact as person, I can't generate control code if I don't input their ID number and their birthday date. I know I can just type any number and birthdate. but that's confusing that such infos are mandatory.

Yes. It's confusing indeed. They are obligatory because a person can also be an employee in which case these are obligatory in most jurisdictions. I usually fill the person ID with 1 and the birthdate with 1-1-1900.

[ehuelsmann]

1. I can't find out how to look at Item List, Customer List, Vendor List. I can make item, but I can't see the item list and the same goes for contact list. this is so confusing. anybody knows how?

'Customer' and 'Vendor' are sub-configurations of Contact. "Contact" is a bit of a misnomer, but we have failed to come up with a better name. We've also considered "Business Partner" or "Entity" neither of which seem to cover the concept. Contacts can be legal entities or natural persons; once these are created, they can be assigned as customer as well as vendor.

I'm not sure what an "Item List" is. Could you explain what you expect to see (or add to) in this list?

[nutzlichsein]

Hi @ehuelsmann , thank you for replying,

'Customer' and 'Vendor' are sub-configurations of Contact. "Contact" is a bit of a misnomer, but we have failed to come up with a better name. We've also considered "Business Partner" or "Entity" neither of which seem to cover the concept.

I think the name 'Contact' is fine and understandable, but my question was how can I import 'Contact" in bulk. My situation right now is looking for a new ERP / Accounting system for my company. So, writing the contacts, that I already have, manually and one by one would be less ideal.

I'm not sure what an "Item List" is. Could you explain what you expect to see (or add to) in this list?

What I expect is the list of items (of products or services that I sell in my company), along with the informations and price of the items. Like an overview of what we sell, and the attributes to it.

I usually fill the person ID with 1 and the birthdate with 1-1-1900.

Understood, that's what I did also.

Thank you

[nick-prater]

What I expect is the list of items (of products or services that I sell in my company), along with the informations and price of the items. Like an overview of what we sell, and the attributes to it.

From the menu, go to Goods and Services -> Search.

...my question was how can I import 'Contact" in bulk.

There isn't a function to import bulk contacts, but it could be done with a Perl script, or at database level.

The challenge for making a generic import function is how to map the source data structure, with the LedgerSMB structure. This is likely different for every situation, meaning it requires a bespoke import script.

For each customer/vendor in your current data, you'd need to create:

1. Either a company or a person
2. One or more linked entity_credit_account
3. One or more location records (an address)

What format and structure is your current data? I'd be happy to give some pointers as to what's involved if you're able to share more detail.

[ehuelsmann]

If you want to automate this process, I'd be happy to write the missing code in the ledgersmb-admin utility; the idea would then be that we need a bit of discussion on what would make an easy import format due to the fact that different systems may have different setup (they may not have companies/persons separate from customer/vendor data (our entity_credit_account) and they may or may not have a location table associated either with the company or with the customer/vendor).

[ehuelsmann]

Let's start by taking your data as an example: what does your customer data look like? I mean: does it differentiate between natural persons and legal entities? What about addresses: what are they linked to? What is the structure of contact data (phone numbers, mail addresses)?

[github-actions[bot]]

Closing: more than 90 days without user response. Feel free to reopen with your comments.