I have a small retail store and I am upgrading our computerized point
of sale system from dos based (The General Store by Critchlow) to a
new system (Quickbooks Retail.) The data files are saved as .MAS files,
which should be Microsoft Access. However, Access 2000 does not recognize
these files.
My question: Is there a way for me, a computer user, but no expert,
to convert these dos based files to Excel so that they may be uploaded
into the new Quickbooks Retail system? Failing that, are there
services (provide links, please) that could take a copy of the data
files and convert them to excel? |
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
06 Jun 2006 17:04 PDT
professortoy-ga,
Please upload your file so we can have a look at it.
A good way to do this is at this temporary upload service:
http://www.yousendit.com/
You DON"T NEED TO REGISTER at the site, even though they ask for a log-in.
Just supply your email address in #1, and then click BROWSE at #2 to
find a file to upload from your system.
Be aware, that once it's uploaded, it's available for all the world to
see, so don't put anything confidential out there.
Once it's uploaded, YouSendIt will show you the link for the file.
Copy and paste the link here, so we can look at the file and see if it
can be opened.
Hope that's clear.
pafalafa-ga
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Clarification of Question by
professortoy-ga
on
07 Jun 2006 06:14 PDT
Thanks. Here is the link:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=598ECD9F06AB1E4E
(Keep in mind I won't be ready to change to the new system for about
another 10 days to two weeks, which means I'll have to convert the
most recent file at that time. I hope that makes sense.)
Thanks.
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Request for Question Clarification by
hummer-ga
on
07 Jun 2006 08:02 PDT
Hi professortoy,
Is this not possible?
Open Excel
File / Open / File type: All Files / [choose your dos file]
A Text Import Wizard should pop up.
Choose Delimited / Next
Choose TAB / Next
--
Excel to QB:
"You can download sample .iif for a specific transaction types from
the table below. These files can be used as templates to create your
own import files. Follow these steps to download them:.."
http://www.quickbooks.com/support/faqs/docs/w_iiffiles2.html
Big Red List Importer for QuickBooks (free trial)
http://www.bigredconsulting.com/aboutlistimport.htm
Does that help?
hummer
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Clarification of Question by
professortoy-ga
on
07 Jun 2006 09:31 PDT
I tried opening the file with excel, but no wizard popped up. When I
selected the file and clicked on "open", I get an error message
stating: "Cannot resolve this link. The file may not be a shortcut."
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Clarification of Question by
professortoy-ga
on
07 Jun 2006 19:24 PDT
Thanks. I seem to be getting closer.
I was able to convert the file to a text file and open it with the
text wizard within Excel. However, I seem to be having trouble using
the delimiting tool. I can read the file contents, but I can't seem
to get them into the proper cells in the excel worksheet. It doesn't
work using tabs, commas, spaces, or anything else I can think of. I
even tried putting the delimiters in manually, but it still doesn't
put items in the correct columns.
Any other help would be appreciated. Thanks.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
hummer-ga
on
07 Jun 2006 19:40 PDT
Ok, back up in the wizard and choose "Fixed Width" instead of "Tab Delimited".
Instructions for Fixed-Width files
http://info.wlu.edu/working_with_data/excel.html#anchor
Instructions for Delimited files
http://info.wlu.edu/working_with_data/excel.html#Anchor-Importing-49575
Good luck!
hummer
|
Clarification of Question by
professortoy-ga
on
08 Jun 2006 13:00 PDT
I have tried the fixed width option and find that using this results
in crashing excel. Perhaps there is too much data (Over 10,000 rows)
but even when I try to take a lower number of rows, it still crashes.
I have also tried all of the delimited options, only to find that it
either groups all item information into the cells in the "A" column of
excel, or that the file will not load completely. (We get only 6 or 7
items spread out randomly over several cells.)
If anyone has any further ideas, or would like to take a crack at
working on the file by downloading it from the link above, I would
welcome any help. Thanks.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
08 Jun 2006 18:38 PDT
professortoy-ga,
This is a very tough and mysterious file you've got there. I've got a
lot of the text, as you have, but not in any spreadsheet-able fashion.
Are you quite sure that the original program, General Store, *only*
saves files in this one peculiar format, unopenable by current Access
programs?
Are there any "Save file as" or "Export" options in the program?
Also, can you show us what the data *should* lok like when properly
formatted? There's so much going on in the text extract, it's hard to
know what a properly formatted spreadsheet would look like.
Thanks,
pafalafa-ga
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Clarification of Question by
professortoy-ga
on
09 Jun 2006 08:13 PDT
There are a total of 69 files saved by The General Store. I did spot
another TGSITEM file with a .bak extension. (I'm having trouble
uploading it through yousendit, but I'll keep trying. I'll try
working with it in the meantime.)
There should be seventeen files saved for each item in the item file.
I've shown one example below of fields I could identify from the text
versin of the file:
å038901080197[barcode] 99[dept] SMETH[category] M&M CLOCKS
8019 DNR[item name] Y N [there are 4 yes/no fileds,
I'm not sure which these relate to]
Thanks for your continued help and let me know if you need anything else.
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