Debtor Manual

MAIL MERGE EXPORTING

Accrivia can export details from the Debtor module that can be used for Mailing Labels or Form

Letters in Microsoft Word.

Standard Microsoft Word rules apply to set up and use the data in Accrivia to form a Mail Merge, details are set out below for new users.

Export The Data

1. Select

REPORTS | D

EBTORS

–

Debt-MailM tab

2. Select the Debtors Mail Merge Fields report.

3. Make specific debtor selections if required - or leave blank for the entire list

4. Click

[

PREVIEW

].

5. Click on the envelope icon at the top of the screen.  The export screen will be displayed.

6. Select ‘Excel 5.0’ or equivalent from the format drop list.

7. Destination should be disk file.

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7. Click OK.

8. Select excel format options and click on

[

OK

]

.

9. Select a location for the file to be saved to. Pick something you can easily locate again, such as your “My documents” folder or [C:]

10. Either change the file name to something that makes sense to you, or keep it in its current format of DmailMrg.xls or ZDmailMrg.xls

11. Click

[

OK

]

and save the file.

Note: If you are printing off a form letter and need to sort or re-arrange the data that is exported to the spreadsheet, eg wanting to print off a letter for debtors by their debtor type, you can sort the data in the excel sheet.

Sort The Exported Data

Once the data has been saved to a file you can manipulate the information to suit your current needs.

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1. Open the spreadsheet. Click on the square at the top left of the spreadsheet above line 1 and left of the Column A. This will highlight the entire spreadsheet.

2. Click on Data – then Sort, from the top menu. When the popup screen comes up, make sure the option is selected that says My List has Header Row, and choose the information column you want to sort by. eg. If you are going to print them by debtor type, select the Debt-type column as your primary sort field. After customising it as required, save your document to update it.

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This file can now be Mail Merged through the Microsoft Words TOOLS – Mail Merge option. 

You can use this option to set up envelope or label printing, or form letters.

3. In Word, Select Tools-Mail Merge

4. Step 1 is to create the Mail Merge document. From the helper, select if it’s going to be a form letter or mailing labels, or whatever else you are creating.

5. Select the option to ‘Create’ it in the Active window if you want to import the information into your currently open word document. If you are creating a new document from scratch select this option, or if you want to import an address into a form letter open the form letter first before carrying out this process, and import into the form letter.

6. Go to Step 2, Data Source, and select the option to Open Data Source, since you have already created the Excel sheet containing your data.

7. On the Open Data Source screen, locate your Excel file created previously from Accrivia.

Remember to point the directory to the location as specified before (eg. My Documents or C: ) and change the file type at the bottom of the window.

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8. Select the file and click on

[

OPEN

]

9. When asked what Name and Date Range you wish to import, accept Entire Spreadsheet.

10. Next accept Edit Main Document to insert Mail Merge fields into the document being used.

If you are creating mailing labels, at this stage you will either need to select from the list of available labels the ones that correspond to yours, or if they don’t exist create your own custom ones by selecting the New Label option

Labels

1. If you select the option to choose an existing label, and press

[

OK

]

, an Insert Merge Field window comes up. Drop the arrow down on this option, and the available fields from your exported data will be listed. Eg Code will correspond to the Debtor Code in Accrivia, Name to the business or Person’s name, Adress_1 through to Adress_3 will be the address details,

Contact Name, Phone etc. Select the required fields, and position them in the small display window as you want the information to appear on your mailing labels.

2. As this is the Merge Form, the actual customer details won’t be listed at this stage, but rather the fields being used.

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3. After you’ve inserted all the required fields in the right positions, Press the

[OK]

button, and then the Merge button that is now available on the screen.

4. If instead you need to set up a custom label instead of using one of the standard ones, give a name to your custom label and define the sizes of the labels. If you require a definition of what each is, click your right mouse button on the words (eg Vertical Pitch) and select the “What’s This” tab for a definition. After you’ve set it all up, select OK to return to the word document.

5. You’ll now see on the top margin of your Word toolbar new buttons will be available,

Including Insert Merge Field.

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6. Drop the arrow down on this option, and the available fields from your exported data will be listed. Eg Code will correspond to the Debtor Code in Accrivia, Name to the business or Person’s name; Adress_1 through to Adress_3 will be the address details, Contact Name, Phone etc. Select the required fields, and position them as you want the information to appear on your mailing labels or Form Letter. (Refer to the following picture for an example).

7. As this is the Merge Form, the actual customer details won’t be listed at this stage, but rather the fields being used.

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8. After you’ve inserted all the required fields in the right positions, Press the Merge button that is now available on the top task bar.

9. On the Merge dialogue box that appears, select Merge to New Document (as opposed to

Printer or Email), Don’t print blank lines when fields are empty, and then press Merge to create the form letter or mailing labels.

10. A new Word document will be opened in which your merged data and the mailing labels or Form letter will be ready for checking and printing. Switch to this document and continue. There will be a copy of the document for each person in your Excel list to print, eg if you had a 1 page letter and 25 people in your Excel sheet list, there will be 25 pages to print off in this newly made document.

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11. If any additional changes are required, switch back to the main document, modify as required, press the Merge option again on the button menu as per step 14, and regenerate the merged data for reprinting. Discard the previously created form letter or mailing labels and keep the newer one.

Note that the same procedure can be used to create Creditors form letters or mailing labels also, by selecting the required Creditor report (eg Creditors - Creditor Mail Merge Fields) and exporting the data in the same way.

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