Fourth API – Sales Import to Fourth Labour & Payroll

Executive Summary

• The import routine and database tables are designed to accommodate a variety of transactions from a multitude of sources.
• For staff/wage cost planning we operate three different ‘types’ of revenue; Budget, Forecast and Actual per day.
• This allows the required granularity in wage% management on a daily basis that most of our customers work with.
• From the EPOS interface the Fourth Labour Solution only requires the ‘Total Actual Revenue’ for each day.
• The files are transmitted daily from the client to Fourth’s secure FTP server.
• (FTP server and login details available upon request)

Interface File Format

Sample

• LocId, SectionId, DivisionId, Date, Category, SubCategory, TransactionType, Value
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”NSA”,3890.28
  • 8107922,"","","14/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”NSA”,5908.13
  • 8107922,"","","15/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”NSA”,4302.09
  • 8107922,"","","16/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”NSA”,6131.88
• LocationID – this is the ‘Accounting System Code’ within the HR Module > Administration > Location within the Fourth Labour solution.
• SectionID – Leave blank (remember the quotes “”)
• DivisionID – Leave blank (remember the quotes “”)
• Category and SubCategory – a code that corresponds to an entry in the Database for those two tables. This example it is “NSA” – NetSalesActual (this is the standard code used, but can be anything).

Transaction

• Type a code that is linked in the system to whether it is Budget, Forecast or Actual Revenue. For simplicity we recommend setting it to the same as Category and SubCategory.
• The respective codes for Category, SubCategory and TransactionType need to be set-up in the back-end database by Fourth to facilitate the linking of Sales into the correct Revenue tables.
• Naming convention – there are no restrictions on the naming convention of the files. The only requirement is that the naming convention stays consistent throughout.

ADVANCED - Hourly Sales Configuration

• The sales import supports import of hourly net sales using the TransactionType to post net sales to the correct hour slot.
• The file format is identical- instead of one entry per location per day there can be up to 24 entries per location.
• Use REV01, REV02, … REV24 as the TransactionType to post to the correct hour slot
  • REV01 = 00:01 to 01:00
  • REV02 = 01:01 to 02:00
  • REV03 = 02:01 to 03:00
  • REV23 = 22:01 to 23:00
  • REV24 = 23:01 to 00:00

Sample (Hourly Net Sales)

• LocId, SectionId, DivisionId, Date, Category, SubCategory, TransactionType, Value
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV11”,890.28
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV12”,908.13
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV13”,302.09
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV23”,890.28
  • 8107922,"","","13/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV24”,14.76
  • 8107922,"","","14/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV11”,614.87
  • 8107922,"","","14/02/2009","NSA","NSA",”REV12”,131.88
• The codes for TransactionType need to be set-up in the back-end database by Fourth to facilitate the linking of Sales into the correct hour slots

Business Logic

• The order in which the lines appear in the file is irrelevant. Any order is permitted.
• Multiple locations can be included in the same file (preferred).
• Multiple entries for the same location and date is allowed – system will sum all entries for the location/day and update the rota with the sum for that day.
• Logic can be configured within the Fourth Labour solution to allow ‘re-load’ of previously submitted days, i.e. if revenue adjustments are done by Head Office a number of days later the import can be configured to allow a ‘re-load’ / ‘overwrite’ of previously submitted numbers.

Also See

• Fourth - Labour & Payroll