Importing Sales Data

PubGizmo allows you to import sales records from spreadsheets. These may arrive from vendors such as Ingram, eBound, iTunes, etc., or you may generate these yourself, for example from sales you conduct at a live event, or exported from accounting software such as Quickbooks. These sheets can be imported directly from Excel (XLSX, or the older XLS format), or CSVs, which represent universal formats – all data software can save in one of these formats. If given the choice, use XLSX; it's the most modern, data-rich format.

The only requirement for these imports is that they contain a minimum set of data; you can find a list of these requirements at Sales Data Needed to Compute Royalties.

Basic Process

The full process is outlined in detail below, but conceptually, here's what you will be doing:

1. Point to the file you want to import.
2. Select which columns contain which data, or allow them to load automatically, if you've performed this import previously.
3. Tell PubGizmo to process the import.

Full Step-by-step Process

You can begin an import from the Home screen, or from within Sales Imports module.

1. On the Home screen, click the + icon; in the Sales module, click the Import button.
2. You will be prompted to locate your file; navigate to the appropriate folder on your computer. Note that only files with an extension of .xlsx, xls., or .csv will be available for import.
3. Double-click the file.
4. If your file includes multiple sheets, you will be prompted to pick the one containing your sales data. This may or may not be the first one. In fact, the file may contain multiple sheets with importable data. You'll have to perform the import process for each sheet in the file. (Open the sheet in Excel if you need to locate which sheets contain the relevant data.)
5. Double-click the appropriate sheet.
6. Disregard the Specify Import Order screen. Don't touch anything here, or the import may fail. You can immediately click the Import button, at the bottom-right.
7. Click Okay on Import Summary. Disregard the record count; it may seem too high, but that's only because FileMaker doesn't know exactly where the rows end in your sheet, and will import extra data.
8. You will now see the import mapping screen. Here is where you tell PubGizmo which columns on the sheet contain which elements of the required data. There may be many columns, but you only need a few, the required ones, for a complete sales import that will contribute to the data required to compute royalties.
9. Scroll left and right through the data to locate your columns. When you spot the data you need, for example the ISBN, click the header above that column (where it might say Unassigned, or it might correctly or incorrectly display a header) to select the data it contains, e.g., ISBN.
10. PubGizmo will help you determine if you've selected all the data necessary for a successful import. Keep an eye on the Column Mapping area at the upper-left of the screen; it will show you what's missing.
11. Some data is optional, for example, the Province or State of sale; if you ever want to do analysis of your data, you should specify as much information as possible.
12. Note that some sheets lack columns for data that applies to the entire sheet. For example, if the currency of all the sales in the sheet is in US Dollars, the sheet may not include a Currency column. The same is true for the Exchange Rate (required only if the Remit Amount column contains non-domestic currencies), Country of sale, and the Invoice Date. Using the areas along the top, you can specify global data that encompasses the entire import.
13. The import cannot proceed if any of the required selectors are not set. This prevents you from importing useless sales data.
14. Also note that you can easily delete and reimport a sales sheet, with no ill effects. So if you make a mistake at import, don't worry; you can reset your selections and try again.
15. You must enter a name for the Process Import. This is because PubGizmo saves your column "map," and automatically tries to apply it the next time you import from this vendor, since the location of columns tends to remain static. If they do change, you can update the map to reflect the new column order.
16. The best name for a Process Import is a single word unique to this particular vendor, and which will always be found in the filename. For example, name your import "Ingram" if it comes from Ingram, and contains "Ingram" in the filename.
17. The Process button will remain grey until you complete all the required data, including the Process Name.
18. Once you click the button, PubGizmo will find all the records with a valid ISBN in the column you specified as ISBN; any line on the sheet without one will be discarded.
19. After that, you will be sent to the Home screen. PubGizmo hands the processing off to the server. It may take many minutes to process; while that is happening, the import will show in your Session History with the name and timestamp of the import, and the word PENDING. When the process is done, PENDING will be replaced with the number of records imported (this may not update until you "hover" over the entry). You can click on the import at any time to navigate there, but until the process is finished, the data may look weird and incomplete.
20. You don't have to wait to perform your next import; PubGizmo is immediately ready to receive your next one.