Seamless Integration with SAP Business One though Service Layer
Table of Contents:
Requirements:
The seamless integration with SAP Business One HANA and Clarity requires Service Layer to be setup and running on Business One machine.
Version Compatibility
There are several interfaces within Clarity:
SAP Business One v.10, v.9 - Service Layer Detail (seamless)
SAP Business One v.10, v.9 - Service Layer Summary (seamless)
Both interfaces features detailed in this document are appropriate with Clarity and:
SAP Business One v10.*, 9.*
Interface functionality
The interface between SAP Business One and Clarity includes the following:
- Retrieval of all General Ledger account codes and descriptions from SAP Business One into Clarity
- Import of Employees from SAP Business One to add to Clarity Employee database
- Employees from SAP Business One imported to update employee records in Clarity
- Employees from Clarity exported to update employee records in SAP Business One
- Export of General Ledger Accounting Transactions into SAP Business One as an un-posted Journal Voucher.
Using the SAP Business One Cloud Interface
In order to interface to SAP Business One there are a few steps that you need to adhere to in order for the interface to function appropriately. After you have confirmed that the requirements are completed (above) then you need to go Setupà Preferences and go to the Interfaces tab. Here you must set the Default general ledger interface to use the export interface of SAP Business One v.10, v.9 - Service Layer Summary (seamless) or SAP Business One v.10, v.9 - Service Layer Detail (seamless).
You may notice the option for “Use code finder”, this is an optional field and it’s functionality will be covered later. For now, keep this selection unchecked.
If you want to import/export employees then you need to also select below settings:
Now that the interface is set to use SAP Business One when you attempt to do exports or imports between Clarity and SAP Business One you will be prompted with the following connection parameters. Once you have entered them once on any of the appropriate forms (which you will see later) Clarity will save the connection information.
Service Root URL specifies where your SAP Service Layer is setup.
Company DB is the name of the Database in SAP that you are attempting to connect too.
User name and Password are your user name and password used to log into SAP Business One client.
Retrieving General Ledger Account Codes
As you can see in the Image to the left, SAP Business One can have numerous General Ledger account codes, and depending on your needs, these codes may be quite long and complex.
Therefore Clarity provides you the ability to retrieve the General Ledger Account codes from SAP Business and store them in Clarity’s database.
This feature will allow the verification of entered GL account codes in Clarity so you do not accidently enter a GL code that does not exists in SAP Business One and see complications during your creation of the Journal Entries.
To enable this feature you go to the Preferences menu (located via the menu SetupàPreferences) and under the Interfaces tab you will find the Default general ledger interface with an option for “Use code finder”. Turning this option on will allow us to access the necessary menus to obtain the list of General ledger accounts codes from SAP Business One.
Now you are ready to obtain the General Ledger account codes and descriptions from SAP Business One. To start the process you need to go to the menu SetupàGeneral LedgeràRefresh Code Finder where you will enter the connection information (described in the Using the SAP Business One Interface section above) and select the option next which will then provide you with a single option to “Refresh”. After the refresh is complete you will get a message saying “Import complete!” If you do not receive this message but instead receive an error message refer to the error message listings at the end of the document.
Exporting your General Ledger to SAP Business One
After you have processed your payroll you can export the information to SAP Business One, here we will cover the export details relative to the interface only, general details about exporting GL can be reviewed in the Exporting your General Ledger article.
When doing the export to the General Ledger from Clarity to SAP Business One you must fill out the information on the parameters screen as seen below.
All of the fields on this screen must be completed in order to guarantee a successful export to SAP Business One. For details on the connection information review the section Using the SAP Business One Interface above.
Currency code: This is the Currency in which you want your transactions to be exported in. Typically a $ (dollar sign) other codes such as “US”; “USA”; “CAN”; and “CDN” have been used. To see your list of valid currency codes log into SAP B1 and go to AdministrationàSetupàFinancialsàCurrencies
Employee identification: This option defines how you would like the employee information to be displayed in the Journal Entry in SAP B1. The valid options are Employee Number; Employee Number + surname + first name; Employee number + first name + surname; and blank
When using the “SUMMARY” interface version this option will summarize for each employee based on the selection done here. Using the following details look at the below examples.
Employee # 132.32 Salary $500 GL Account 323-23-211
Employee # 132.32 Bonus $1100 GL Account 323-23-211
Employee # 132.32 Taxes $223.23 GL Account 992-23-219
Employee # 389.29 Salary $1300 GL Account 323-23-211
Summary with employee identification set to Number will have all records to a single GL account code report for each employee as seen below.
Employee # 132.32 GL Account 323-23-211 Amount $1600.00
Employee # 132.32 GL Account 992-23-219 Amount $ 223.23
Employee # 389.29 GL Account 323-23-211 Amount $1300.00
Summary format with employee identification set to blank will export the records to a single GL Account code for all employees reporting to that same code
GL Account 323-23-211 Amount $2900.00
GL Account 992-23-219 Amount $ 223.23
Therefore if your company is concerned about accounting seeing employee information by reviewing the GL Account transactions set the interface to “Summary” with employee identification of None.
Memo: The memo field will appear in the “Remarks” section of the Journal Voucher.
Project code segment # (or 0): This option is used if you want to include Project information for each transaction during your export. In this case the GL Code finder cannot be used because the GL codes you enter will be inclusive of an additional segment representing the Project Code.
For example: Using the Salary GL Account above of 323-23-211 if we wanted to report this to Project CONS then we would have set the GL Account in Clarity as 323-23-211-CONS. The CONS part is not technically part of the GL Account code and will be stripped away during the export and used instead as the project code.
The same goes for all other segment dimensions and branch.
Once you select the “Export” option the transactions will be sent to SAP Business One without further interference from yourself. With the successful export the records will appear as an Un-posted Journal Voucher in SAP Business One. These Vouchers can be accessed in SAP business One by going to FinancialsàJournal Vouchers. In the event of unsuccessful export you will be displayed an error message. Referee to the error messages at the end of this document for details on possible errors.
SAP Business One Employee Exchange
Accessed under UtilitiesàSAP Business One employee exchange this option allows you to export or import information between SAP Business One and Clarity.
The interface provides three (3) options:
Import into Clarity new employees existing in SAP Business One
Import into Clarity updates for employees existing in both systems
Export from Clarity updates for employees existing in both systems.
Import new employees into Clarity
It’s important to note that when using this interface option the point of employee creation should always be in SAP Business One. The reason behind this is that the Employee number assigned to Employees in SAP Business One is an auto-incremented, non-customizable field and used as the linking field between Clarity and SAP Business One.
When you select the option to import the employees into Clarity from SAP Business One you will be prompted with the connection information for the server. This is discussed above in the section Using the SAP Business One Interface. The next screen, seen below, will show us a list of all the employees that were found in SAP Business One that currently do not exist in Clarity. The program will also display a short list of the fields that are going to be transferred such as the Employees Number, Surname, First name, Payroll Group, Address and City for the employee.
Additional fields that will be transferred that you are not shown at this time are:
State or Province*
Country*
Social Security Number (US) or Social Insurance Number (CAN)*
Date of Birth*
Hire Date*
Gender
Marital Status
Department
Job Title
Home Telephone Number
Cell phone number
Office Phone number
Employment Status (Active, Terminated)
Email Address
Postal or Zip Code
The fields above that are listed with a * in front of them are considered mandatory fields and the employee record will NOT import if the fields has not been defined properly in SAP Business One.
Error Codes
-10061: REST request failed: Socket Error # 10061. Connection refused.
Service Root URL is incorrect.
-10060: REST request failed: Socket Error # 10061. Connection timed out.
Service Root URL is incorrect.
-10: Fail to get DB Credentials from SLD
Company DB name is incorrect.
- 100000027: Fail to get DB Credentials from SLD
User name or password is incorrect.