Each Quote record in kashflow is matched to a document is eLink. The kashflow integration module in elink recognises quotes from other types of document (kashflow or otherwise) by the fact that kashflow documents include the custom types General@KF and Quote@KF.
There are quite a few custom fields within a quote that are held in elink. Actually, most of these fields are common to quotes, sales invoices and purchase invoices. This is the reason why they are held under the ‘General@KF’ tab. The Quote@KF tab holds the data that is specific to quotes.
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Tab
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Subtab
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Field Name
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Notes
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| General@KF | Totals | Net Amount | Automatically Calculated |
| VAT Amount | Automatically Calculated | ||
| Amount Paid | Automatically Calculated | ||
| Paid | |||
| Summary | Invoice ID | Obtained from Kashflow – blan for new records. | |
| Invoice Number | |||
| Date Raised | |||
| Due Date | |||
| Detail | Suppress Total | ||
| Project ID | |||
| Exchange Rate | |||
| Quote@KF | - | Customer Ref | |
| Estimate Cat | |||
| Currency Code |
Quote Totals
The Kashflow integration module adds some data to the normal document-product data given in eLink, such as the VAT Rate for each line, the VAT content, and the totals with and without VAT. In addition to this information, the overall totals for the entire quote are given at the end of the quote lines. These totals are reflected in the data to be shared with kashflow.
Creating a Quote using eLink
Create a new document, giving it a sensible name. Then select the General@KF and Quote@KF custom types. Once this has been done, the kashflow Integration module will recognise that the document is a kashflow quote and will expose additional data to allow the quote to be completed.
Linking Quote Lines to a Quote
In Kashflow, lines within a quote are associated with a product or a nominalcode. This relationship is mirrored by linking the quote document to appropriate products in the elink product list. For the relationship to work correctly for Kashflow, the products must be products that are recognised by Kashflow. Currently, elink will allow a Kashflow quote to be linked to any product in its product list – which may or may not be Kashflow-related entries. Refer to the page on Ancillary data for more details of the appropriate products.
Converting an existing elink document into a Quote
Currently, there is no automated support for converting an existing elink document into a Kashflow Quote. It may be possible to perform such conversion manually, but the following issues should be noted:
1. The quote must be associated with a Kashflow Customer, by linking the quote document to a company record that represents a Kashflow Customer.
2. The quote must be associated with Kashflow-related products only.
3. The quote must be of types General@KF and Quote@KF.
It may be that the process of converting an existing document into a quote may cause difficulties. A better alternative may be to create a new document with the appropriate linkages to customer and nominalcode data and to link that document to the existing document so that the original and the new one coexist.
Converting a Quote to a Sales Invoice
Kashflow includes facilities to convert a quote to a sales invoice. This facility has not been mirrored in the Kashflow integration module of eLink. The best way to perform this task may be to use Kashflow to do it. If it is to be applied to a quote generated in elink, the process could be accomplished by synchronising the two systems, causing the quote to be replicated in Kashflow, then to use kashflow to perform the conversion, generating the sales invoice. Finally, a further synchronisation can be used to copy the newly created sales invoice to elink. Note that Kashflow has facilities to delete the original quote on conversion. Such facilities may cause issues with elink as it is generally recommended that all records be retained as a audit trail.
Synchronisation
The synchronisation process between elink and Kashflow can only work correctly if any data within elink is structured correctly. So, care must be taken to ensure that quote records are linked to the appropriate customer and product records as follows:
1. The quote must be associated with a Kashflow Customer, by linking the quote document to a company record that represents a Kashflow Customer.
2. The quote must be associated with Kashflow-related products only.
3. The quote must be of types General@KF and Quote@KF.
The kashflow integration module may generate synchronisation errors or warnings if the above considerations are overlooked. In particular, if a quote is not associated with a Kashflow customer (with a valid customer ID), that quote cannot be synchronised with Kashflow – causing an error to occur. If a quote is associated with non-Kashflow products, those quote lines cannot be synchronised with kashflow because kashflow will not hold the necessary product data. Again, errors or warnings may occur in this situation. Another danger is that a quote may be partially copied to Kashflow, giving the impression of synchronisation, but with flaws in the results.
Another issue that should be noted is that updating a quote already stored in Kashflow causes the original quote lines to be deleted and replaced with those given in elink. If any errors occur during synchronisation, it is possible that the kashflow data could become corrupted. For this reason, it is recommended that only new data should be synchronised to kashflow – care should be taken updating existing kashflow data.
