Interfacing asset transactions

Use this procedure to import non-Lawson historical transaction records into the Asset Management application and convert them to unreleased Lawson asset transaction records .

Tips about interfacing

How is transaction interface used?

You must interface assets, asset items, and asset books before you can interface their associated transactions. The book for which historical depreciation is recorded must be a posting book with the Depreciation History field set to Yes.

Interface asset transactions

  1. Prepare the non-Lawson transaction file. The file must be in an importable format such as a comma-separated value (CSV) file and the file fields must match the order, size, and file type of the fields in the AMASTTRCNV (Unix/Windows) or DBAMTNC (IBMi) interface file. The file layout is available on the Web. See your Lawson representative for more information.
    Note: If you are interfacing transaction files simultaneously as you are interfacing the associated asset, asset item, and asset book files, perform steps 1 through 4 of this procedure after you perform steps 1 through 6 of the procedure on interfacing assets, asset items, and asset books.

    Interfacing assets, asset items, and asset books

  2. Transfer the non-Lawson file to the machine that contains the Lawson environment.

    You can use a standard transfer utility such as ftp or the Lawson program winptxfr. You may have to rename the file to match your machine's requirements. For example, to transfer file Trans-Interface.csv on your c: drive to a Lawson server and rename it transinterf, use this command:

    winptxfr -u transinterf c:\\ pathname \\Trans-Interface.csv

  3. Load the transferred file into the AMASTTRCNV (Unix/Windows) or DBAMTNC (IBMi) file, using this command from the environment prompt:

    importdb productline AMASTTRCNV transfilename

    where transfilename is the name of the non-Lawson transaction file transferred to your machine in step 2.

  4. View and edit the unprocessed transaction records in AMASTTRCNV (Unix/Windows) or DBAMTNC (IBMi), using Transaction Interface Adjustment (AM93.1).

    Specify this information:

    Conversion Number

    This field is required.

    If you interface the transaction records simultaneously as the asset, asset items, and asset book records are interfaced, this field must match the conversion number assigned to the associated asset.

    If you interface the transaction records after you interface their associated assets, this field can be the alphanumeric conversion number identifying the interfaced asset with which the transaction is associated, or the numeric asset number automatically assigned to the asset when it was interfaced.

    Note: If the asset number is used in this field, it must be zero-filled to 10 characters so it is processed as a right-justified numeric field.
    Sequence Number

    You must assign a unique number to each transaction to be transferred into the Lawson system. This number will not be the same as the system-generated number assigned to the transaction record when the transaction record is interfaced.

    Transaction Description, Book, Company, Transaction Date, Accounting Unit, Account, Account Type, Process

    These fields are required.

    Account Type represents the type of asset account to which the transaction is posted (such as asset, accumulated depreciation, and so on).

    Process represents the type of process that produced the transaction (such as addition, adjustment, transfer , and so on)

    Asset Group, Asset Type, Account Group, Activity, Lease

    These fields are optional.

  5. Run Asset Management Interface (AM500) to interface the asset transaction records into the Asset Management application.

    Specify this information:

    Release

    Use Y (Yes) in this field to interface transaction records. Records that contain data incompatibility errors are not interfaced. Records that are interfaced are removed from the interface files.

    It is strongly recommended that you first run AM500 with the Release field set to N (No) to generate a report of interfaced and rejected records, before you interface the records and modify the Asset Management data. This step may save you extensive rework.

    Company, Company Group, Company, Lease

    You must specify a company, a company group, or a lease (with its associated company). Only one of these fields can have a value.

    Error Limit

    You can specify the maximum number of errors the program can encounter before it stops processing. The default number is 100.

    Files to Convert

    Select 4 (Transactions Only) to interface this file alone.

    Conversion

    If you are interfacing this file alone, you can convert by conversion number or by asset number, depending what number you specified in the Conversion Number field of the interface file.

    Note: If you are converting by asset number, asset numbers specified in the Conversion Number fields must be zero-filled to 10 characters so they are processed as numeric values.
  6. View the report generated by AM500. If it contains errors:
    1. Correct the non-interfaced transactions, using AM93.1.
    2. Run AM500 again.
    3. Repeat this step until the report shows no errors.