Using MS Excel V – Lookups

This article discusses MS Excel functionality called V-Lookups that could greatly improve your efficiency when reconciling and comparing records between two separate data columns with each other and so helping you to efficiently analyse or explain discrepancies between them. The following case study explains further:

The problem we’re facing is a difference between the Age Analysis- and the AR control account balances as on a specific date.

A data export out of Sage Evolution to Excel has therefore been performed using two reports:

The 1st report shows a list of reference numbers and debit/credit values as obtained from the exported Age Analysis report. The second report shows a list of reference numbers and debit/credit values as obtained from the Ledger Account transaction report.

Report 1: Age Ananlysis

Report 2: Ledger Account Control Account

Do the following:

1. Open both Excel files.

2. We’ll use the Ledger Account transaction report and compare that to the Age Analysis.

3. On the Ledger Account transaction report, insert a new column next to the current Reference Number and give it an appropriate name e.g. AGE ANALYIS REFERENCE.

4. Insert a V-Lookup formula on the first open cell on the new Age Analysis Reference column.

The next few steps will explain the 4 different V-Lookup fields.

Lookup Value:

5. Click with your mouse in the Lookup_value field.

6. Then select with your mouse the cell with the value that you want to compare against: therefore cell A3 in this case. Notice the cell address below.

Table_ Array:

7. Click with your mouse in the Table_Array field.

8. Then go to the Age Analysis Excel spreadsheet and select the Reference Number column on it. Notice how the Table Array field auto-populate.

9. Immediately after the Table_Array field has been populated, select F4 on the keyboard in order to use absolute cell referencing- this means that the actual lookup (searchable) area of the V-Lookup will stay 100% constant and not shift down when moving to the next row as the formula is copied down.

Col_index_num:

10. In this case, the 1st column in the selected column on the Age Analysis report file is the Reference number. Therefore, enter a value of ‘1’ on this field. Remember, if on the other comparison file (Age Analysis), the actual criteria column was in a different column e.g. 3rd from the left of the area as defined in the Table Array filed, then you would have selected 3 here.

Range _lookup:

11. Enter a value of FALSE on this field. When done, select the OK button below.

Process from here:

12. Notice the V-Lookup function has now matched the first reference number from the Age Analysis report file as stated below.

13. Now copy the V-Lookup formula down and notice the results. Where it states ‘#N/A’, it means no matching record could be found between this file, the Ledger Account transaction report and the comparative Age Analysis report.

14. Repeat the above exercise but this time work on the Age Analysis report as compared to the Ledger Account Transactions report in order to compare the two reports with each other. It might be that records exist on the Age Analysis reports which are not found on the Ledger Account Transactions report.

15. Could not allocate space for object. Error message when processing or adding records.

16. The following error message may be received when processing any where in Evolution or when creating any new records.

Solution

The first thing to confirm is the exact version and edition of the relevant MS SQL database engine instance.

It could be that the client is running on MS SQL 2008 Express edition which has a built-in database size limit of 10 GB (MDF and LDF database files combined). It might be that the next transaction to be processed exceeds the database size limit, resulting in the above error message type.

Therefore, always consider the relevant SQL version database edition limitations vs. the actual database size. If the above scenario is the cause of the error it is recommended that an upgrade to full SQL server 2012 (or 2008) is completed.

In the short term you can buy a bit of time by running a Purge First Year routine, purge AP and AR transaction history and also shrink the MDF and LDF files.

In order to confirm the exact version of SQL, do the following:

In MS SQL Management Studio, right click on the SQL Server instance and select Properties.

Look at the Product entry on the right to see if Express is mentioned.

Alternatively run the following SQL script on any of the databases on the SQL instance:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion') as [Product Version],

SERVERPROPERTY('productlevel') as [Product Level],

SERVERPROPERTY('edition') as [Product Edition]

Example:

Finally, consider the amount of free disk space available on the hard drive as database growth might potentially be exceeding it.

Evolution suddenly closes

Clients might experience that Sage Evolution unexpectedly closes when work is being done in a document as well as in other places in the opened company.

No error messages will be received, the program just suddenly closes.

Solution

This might be caused by Team Viewer that runs on the same PC on which the above problem is received.

It is possible to configure Team Viewer in such a way that any clashes it is having with Evolution is removed by doing the in the following way

In Team Viewer, you will go to:

1. Extras | Options | Advanced.

2. Go to QuickConnect button and click on Configure.

3. Deactivate it by unselecting the Show QuickConnect button and click OK.

4. Go to Extras | Options | Remote Control.

5. Change the Quality option to Custom Settings.

6. Click on the Custom Settings button below and check Improve application compatibility (reduces performance).

7. Select Ok and save all settings when exiting Team Viewer.

Transaction code has a different foreign currency symbol for the ledger account

The following error message may be received when processing a transaction in Sage Evolution, in this case an AR Standard Transaction screen:

Solution

It might be that the relevant transaction type has not been correctly set up and may be lacking one or more GL accounts on it.

Adjust this and continue processing.

Login failed for user domain error message

The following error message may be received when attempting a company copy.

Solution

This message could be as a result of different login details being used than those used when MS SQL was installed. This means that the relevant SQL server instance is unable to provide proper company database creation rights to the new Windows account resulting in the error message above.

To resolve this you could manually add the new Windows account within Management Studio by following these steps:

1. Login to the PC with the original Windows account.

2. Login to Management Studio using Windows Authentication.

3. Go to Security | Logins and add the new account here.

Alternatively you could do the following:

1. Login to Management Studio using SQL Authentication, with the new Windows account logged on to the PC.

2. Go to Security | Logins and add the new account here.

Another cause for the above error message could be that the copy company was performed using a remote desktop connection account that doesn’t have sufficient Windows rights to perform the procedure.

Missing customer code or name at the top of the AR Age Analysis report

When attempting to print transactions from the AR Age Analysis report, you expect to see the customer code/name at the top of the report just above where the actual transactions are displayed. In version 6.81 this is not the case as can be seen below:

The screen below indicates how it is supposed to display:

This is important to note as some clients send their Age Analysis reports to their banks as part of a debt financing agreement.

The Age Analysis report is then exported into MS Excel and sent to the bank that requires the top customer code/name.

Solution

Export the layout from a previous version e.g. Version 6.50.97 and import it into the company where the above problem occurred.

Could not initialise connection to Evolution database

The following error message may be received when selecting the Bank Manager icon in a cashbook batch.

Solution

In a recent incident it was found that the MS SQL Server had a host of blocking exceptions on that was effectively blocking Bank Manager communication.

When the client’s IT experts reconfigured these exceptions, the problem was resolved.

However, the following should also be considered as a possible cause for the error above.

Add the Inbound and Outbound ports for UDP and TCP/IP on the firewall of both the workstations and server which could then resolve the above.

Error Posting Batch Line Record

The following error message may be received when attempting an AR Journal batch import:

Solution

One of the first things that should be checked is if the proper Field Mapping has been set up for the batch import. Always go to the Field Mapping tab on the batch import screen and ensure that the right to left order of the batch import fields as found on the CSV import file corresponds with the top to bottom order on the Field Mapping screen. Also ensure you don’t have any blank columns or rows on your import sheet.

Finally, be sure to only use fields on the CSV import file that are actually mapped on the Field Mapping screen. Delete any unnecessary columns on the import sheet that are not used for the import.

Reference for SSVS Payments/Collections must be numeric

The following message could occur when attempting to save the SSVS Payments/Collections EFTS layout type on the Accounts Payable Defaults | EFTS tab screen.

Solution

Follow the steps below to resolve the problem.

1. Go to Common | Maintenance | EFTS Layouts and open the SSVS Payments/Collections layout type.

2. Change the name of the layout, e.g. SSVS Payments/CollectionsNEW.

3. You should then be able to successfully select and save this layout on the AP Defaults | EFTS tab.

Login failed for user domain/Windows account name

Some clients may not want all the MS SQL access rights and permissions as linked to the standard SA (SQL Administrator) user account and want to set up their own instead that includes fewer privileges. Therefore, it is important to know what the minimum access rights are that are recommended under these circumstances.

Solution

Follow the steps below to set up a new SQL user account:

1. In Management Studio, expand the Security | Logins folder, right click on it and select New Login.

2. On the General page, enter the new SQL account and the password below.

3. On the Server Roles page, ensure the process admin and public options below are selected.

4. On the User Mapping page, select the relevant databases to which the new SQL account should have access to, plus add the ‘dbo’ value in the Defaults Schema column next to each selected database.

5. At the bottom of the screen the public option should be selected by default. Select the dbowner option where the new account should be responsible for SQL database upgrades. Don’t select this if its only for working in the Sage Evolution company.

6. On the Securables page select the Search button and then select the option below to indicate the correct server instance.

7. At the bottom of the Securables page, scroll down to the View Server State option and select the Grant option box.

8. On the Status page ensure the Grant and Enabled options are selected and then select OK.

Management studio not available on the start programs menu but a MS SQL installation indicates otherwise

Why is Management Studio missing from the Start | Programs menu although the Management Tools – Basic option is selected when installing MS SQL Express/Server, indicating that it might actually already be installed?

If it is installed, how do you access Management Studio?

Solution

MS SQL Management Studio is installed but this was done using a different Windows Account when MS SQL was installed originally. For that reason Management Studio will not be available for any other Windows user account when logged on to the same PC.

In order to give Management Studio access to the new Windows account, do the following:

1. Control Panel | Programs and Features.

2. Select the relevant SQL instance and the Uninstall/Change button on the top.

3. Select the Remove option on the screen that opens.

4. Follow the uninstallation wizard untill you get to this screen and select the relevant SQL instance.

5. On this screen select the specific component, in this case Management Tools – Basic and the one below it as can be seen below.

6. Complete the uninstall wizard.Please note that this procedure is not uninstalling the actual SQL server instance, merely the specific component of it as selected above.

7. Restart the PC and install Management Studio from the Evolution/SQL installation disk by selecting the option below. Please note that you will not actually install a new SQL instance, but simply adding the Management Tools component to it.

8. When reaching this screen, select the option below and continue with the wizard.

9. This installation will be for the currently logged on Windows account who will then have access to Management Studio via the Start | Programs menu.

10. You will then still be required to give Windows authentication rights to the Windows account who has just installed the Management Studio component for the existing SQL server instance, if not using SQL authentication to connect to the server using Management Studio. Report execution error invalid Column name Column_1 – BIC Error Message. This article discusses how to resolve the following error message when a BIC report is being run.

When you run the report to SQL this is the query:

SELECT

left([Swip].[Master_Sub_Account],4) +'_' +

Right([Swip].[Master_Sub_Account],3) AS "Column_1" ,

[Swip].[Description] AS "Column_2" ,

[Swip].[Account_Type] AS "Column_3" ,

[Swip].[Master_Sub_Account] AS "Column_4" ,

COUNT([SG].[StGroup]) AS "Column_5" ,

COUNT([SG].[Description]) AS "Column_6"

FROM GrpTbl SG

inner join Accounts Swip

on SG.iWIPAccID = Swip.Accountlink

GROUP BY

Column_1,

Column_2,

Column_3,

Column_4

ORDER BY

[Swip].[Master_Sub_Account]

This results in the following SQL error Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 12

Invalid column name 'Column_1'.

Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 13

Invalid column name 'Column_2'.

Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 14

Invalid column name 'Column_3'.

Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 15

Invalid column name 'Column_4'.

Solution:

1. In BIC Administrator Right Click on the folder: ODBC Driver SQL Server.

2. Select Properties, activate Show Advanced.

3. Ensure the use field aliases in group by clauses is NOT selected.

Error initialising report data! Reason: Ambiguous column name 'IINVSEGVALUE1ID'

The following error message may be received when running a standard Outstanding Goods Received Vouchers report.

Solution:

Exported an Outstanding Goods Received Vouchers report layout from a company on a version prior to Evolution version 6.81.48, e.g. ver. 6.80.45, and import that into your current company (which may be currently on version 6.81.48 or perhaps higher).

An error occurred while trying to check whether the Pastel Business Intelligence Centre Module is registered. File EVBICACTIVEXE.CLSBIC680 is either not installed or not registered.

The following error message may be received when opening an Evolution company:

The problem may perhaps be PC specific as others could have no problem with BIC on their PC’s.

Solution

In a recent query the following strange occurence was found:

When the Domain Administrator logged onto the same PC, the following message appeared: “....please wait while Business Intelligence Centre is configured ...” typical as with installing BIC.

It was as if the installation never completed with the normal Windows account.

The message appeared without any installation actions done by the Domain Administrator on the PC.

Eventually the installation process completed, Evolution was opened but no error message occured and all BIC reports ran fine without any issues.

The same error message above was again received when the original Windows account logged again on to the same PC.

The logical assumption is that something is wrong with the normal Windows account on the PC.

It’s either corrupt, somehow gets restricted by the domain controller or is not powerful enough as required by BIC.

This is where the client’s local IT techinician needs to correct the Windows account or create a new one with correct administrator rights.

Electronic document acceptance option on customer maintenance

For those of you who didn’t know this, what is the functionality of the Electronic Document Acceptance option on the Customer Maintenance screen? What are the dynamics involved here to understand and the impact it has on your company?

Solution:

One of SARS requirements states that you should get your customers’ approval when sending them any documents (invoices, credit notes etc.) in an electronic manner such as with e-mialing.

You will therefore need to get each customer’s permission in this regard and when such approval has been obtained, you will then select the above option.

The result will be the wording “Computer Generated” to appear on the top of the document print preview as well as on the resultant other format documents in which it gets saved, such as PDF’s. This will indicate to your recipient customers (and any one else concerned such as auditors) that you have received their permission to send documents electronically.